Chlamydia muridarum and Chlamydia trachomatis hybrid strain RNAseq

Chlamydia muridarum murine infections are widely used as a model for C. trachomatis human infection due to infection and pathology similarities. In contrast, C. trachomatis infections in mice are limited and rarely cause disease. The factors that contribute to these differences in host adaptation and specificity remain elusive. Genomic comparisons to identify potential candidates of host specificity are challenging due to extreme similarities. A region of major genetic divergence termed the plasticity zone (PZ) is hypothesized to contribute to the host specificity. To evaluate this hypothesis, lateral gene transfer was used to generate multiple hetero-genomic strains that are predominately C. trachomatis but have replaced regions of the PZ with those from C. muridarum. RNAseq was preformed on the chimera strains to evaluate expression of the transferred regions, as well as the entirety of the genome.