Decoding lipopolysaccharide variability in Pasteurella multocida for improved control of livestock diseases

Lida Omaleki (The University of Queensland Australia)

10:45 - 11:00 Tuesday 14 April Morning

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Abstract

Pasteurella multocida is a multi-host pathogen responsible for disease across a wide range of hosts. Killed whole-cell vaccines remain an important preventive measure; however, their effectiveness is largely limited to strains with identical or highly similar lipopolysaccharide (LPS) outer structure. LPS, a major surface antigen and virulence factor in Gram-negative bacteria, exhibits considerable structural variability across P. multocida strains. With nine distinct outer LPS biosynthesis loci and 16 somatic (Heddleston) serovars identified, its structural diversity extends beyond these known serovars, posing challenges for vaccine design. We generated a database of subtypes within the nine major LPS types. This database was populated from an extensive assessment of the LPS loci of 1,018 publicly available P. multocida isolates from a variety of hosts and countries and over 100 isolates sequenced in this study.  To facilitate the (sub)typing of the LPS biosynthesis loci, we developed Nextflow workflows to process Illumina and Oxford Nanopore reads. The workflows use the typing tool Kaptive 3 to first assign the type to the LPS locus, followed by Snippy or Clair3 to call and annotate the high impact mutations. The isolates are then assigned a subtype by comparing these mutations to the subtype database. Over 25% of publicly available P. multocida isolates contained inactivating mutations detectable with our subtyping database. This is the first genomic-based tool to aid the livestock industry in choosing isolates to include in killed vaccines while accounting for LPS structural variations which extend the classification of P. multocida LPS into the subtype level.

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