title: Comparative genomic analysis of Escherichia coli O104:H4 stx2 prophage reveals a potential new method to identify virulence factors.
abstract: This study investigated the process of virulence acquisition in a Shiga toxin-producing  Escherichia coli  O104:H4 strain, TY-2482, by comparing the sequence of stx2 (Shiga toxin 2) prophage with the sequences of 1421 complete bacterial genomes and analyzing the evolutionary relationships of the stx2 prophage-like regions identified. The results showed a strong positive correlation between the evolutionary distance and the distance to switch sites of GC skew, suggesting that the loci near these sites are "hotspots" for insertions. These findings represent a potential new method to identify virulence factors in bacterial genomes.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing 102206, China.
authors.forename: Pengcheng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Haiyin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Chen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D055028:Comparative Genomic Hybridization; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D010802:Phylogeny; D039002:Prophages / Q000235:genetics*; D022641:Shiga Toxin 2 / Q000235:genetics*; D054323:Shiga-Toxigenic Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics* / Q000472:pathogenicity / Q000821:virology; D037521:Virulence Factors / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D022641:Shiga Toxin 2; D037521:Virulence Factors