Genome sequencing and comparison of representatives of Pseudomonas aeruginosa clone ST235 strains

In the 2010 years, the Pseudomonas aeruginosa clonal lineage ST235 has emerged as the most prevalent international high-risk clone of this species. The ExoU-positive clone ST235 has been associated with nosocomial acute P. aeruginosa infections of poor clinical outcome worldwide, and the isolated strains typically displayed high-level multi drug resistance due to the presence of resistance cassettes bound to mobile genomic elements included in the bacterial chromosome. We selected older clone ST235 isolates not displaying multi-drug-resistance traits from our strain collection for genome sequencing and comparisons to search for individual and clone-specific genomic traits that might have contributed to the development of the acute infection- and MDR-associated phenotypes in more recent isolates of this clonal lineage. In this context, genomic traits of clone ST235 were compared with clone ST253, another widespread ExoU-positive P. aeruginosa clone.