title: High-level relatedness among Mycobacterium abscessus subsp. massiliense strains from widely separated outbreaks.
abstract: Three recently sequenced strains isolated from patients during an outbreak of Mycobacterium abscessus subsp. massiliense infections at a cystic fibrosis center in the United States were compared with 6 strains from an outbreak at a cystic fibrosis center in the United Kingdom and worldwide strains. Strains from the 2 cystic fibrosis outbreaks showed high-level relatedness with each other and major-level relatedness with strains that caused soft tissue infections during an epidemic in Brazil. We identified unique single-nucleotide polymorphisms in cystic fibrosis and soft tissue outbreak strains, separate single-nucleotide polymorphisms only in cystic fibrosis outbreak strains, and unique genomic traits for each subset of isolates. Our findings highlight the necessity of identifying M. abscessus to the subspecies level and screening all cystic fibrosis isolates for relatedness to these outbreak strains. We propose 2 diagnostic strategies that use partial sequencing of rpoB and secA1 genes and a multilocus sequence typing protocol.
authors.forename: Hervé
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tettelin
authors.forename: Rebecca M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Davidson
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Agrawal
authors.forename: Moira L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Aitken
authors.forename: Shamira
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shallom
authors.forename: Nabeeh A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Hasan
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Strong
authors.forename: Vinicius Calado Nogueira
authors.initials: VC
authors.lastname: de Moura
authors.forename: Mary Ann
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: De Groote
authors.forename: Rafael S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Duarte
authors.forename: Erin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hine
authors.forename: Sushma
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Parankush
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Su
authors.forename: Sean C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Daugherty
authors.forename: Claire M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Fraser
authors.forename: Barbara A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Brown-Elliott
authors.forename: Richard J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Wallace
authors.forename: Steven M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Holland
authors.forename: Elizabeth P
authors.initials: EP
authors.lastname: Sampaio
authors.forename: Kenneth N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Olivier
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.forename: Adrian M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Zelazny
mesh_terms: D001938:Brazil; D003550:Cystic Fibrosis / Q000150:complications; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D006801:Humans; D058885:Multilocus Sequence Typing; D009161:Mycobacterium / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D009164:Mycobacterium Infections / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology; D010802:Phylogeny; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D006113:United Kingdom; D014481:United States
keywords: Mycobacterium abscessus; Mycobacterium abscessus subsp. massiliense; United Kingdom; United States; bacteria; cystic fibrosis; geographically distant outbreaks; outbreaks; relatedness; strains; tuberculosis and other mycobacteria