Title: In silico phylogenetic analysis of Vibrio cholerae isolates based on three housekeeping genes

Authors: Tayebeh Farhadi; Navid Nezafat; Younes Ghasemi

Addresses: Department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 71345-1583, Shiraz, Iran; Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Center, Faculty of Pharmacy, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 71345-1583, Shiraz, Iran ' Faculty of Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 71345-1583, Shiraz, Iran ' Department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 71345-1583, Shiraz, Iran; Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Center, Faculty of Pharmacy, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 71345-1583, Shiraz, Iran

Abstract: Vibrio cholera, a gram-negative bacterium, has been categorised into clinical and environmental species. Phylogenetic studies have been performed to investigate the relationships of the V. cholerae populations in worldwide. In this study, phylogenetic relationship between V. cholerae isolates from Iran and other regions of the world was determined, based on three housekeeping genes analysis. Results for Iranian strains showed that congruency of asd and hlyA phylogenetic trees were remarkably higher than recA tree. Iranian strains displayed 2-3%, 1-14% and 3-5% deference in asd, hlyA and recA nucleotide sequences, respectively. Sequence similarity degrees were variable between Iranian and other region's strains. Furthermore, the non-congruence in the phylogeny of the pathogenic clones in cladograms is probably due to horizontal gene transfer. Finally, results of this study suggest that monitoring of surface waters for housekeeping genes of V. cholerae in the cholera endemic areas may be valuable for forecasting the expected cholera outbreaks.

Keywords: Vibrio cholerae; phylogeny; housekeeping genes; computational biology; phylogenetic analysis; gene transfer; Iran; surface waters; water monitoring; forecasting; cholera outbreaks.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCBDD.2015.068789

International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design, 2015 Vol.8 No.1, pp.62 - 74

Received: 26 Jul 2014
Accepted: 15 Dec 2014
Published online: 12 Apr 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article