Complete Genome of Extensively Drug-Resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae Strain AT159

Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the causative agent of gonorrhea, has developed resistance to all classes of therapeutic antimicrobials introduced and is now one of 12 bacteria that pose the greatest threat to human public health. Decreasing azithromycin susceptibility and sporadic resistance to ceftriaxone threaten the effectiveness of dual-therapy and ceftriaxone monotherapy regimens for the treatment of gonorrhea. Ceftriaxone is the last remaining option for empiric monotherapy of gonorrhea and, with the occurrences of two very similar extensively drug-resistant N. gonorrhoeae (XDR-NG) cases in United Kingdom (ref ) and Australia, the threat of untreatable gonorrhoea has emerged. Herein, we describe the complete chromosome and plasmids of AT159, the fourth case of XDR-NG, to aid the improvement and performance of genome-based surveillance of emerging XDR-NG strains.