title: Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis may be under anagenesis and biovar Equi forms biovar Ovis: a phylogenic inference from sequence and structural analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis can be classified into two biovars or biovars based on their nitrate-reducing ability. Strains isolated from sheep and goats show negative nitrate reduction and are termed biovar Ovis, while strains from horse and cattle exhibit positive nitrate reduction and are called biovar Equi. However, molecular evidence has not been established so far to understand this difference, specifically if these C. pseudotuberculosis strains are under an evolutionary process.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The ERIC 1 + 2 Minimum-spanning tree from 367 strains of C. pseudotuberculosis showed that the great majority of biovar Ovis strains clustered together, but separately from biovar Equi strains that also clustered amongst themselves. Using evolutionarily conserved genes (rpoB, gapA, fusA, and rsmE) and their corresponding amino acid sequences, we analyzed the phylogenetic relationship among eighteen strains of C. pseudotuberculosis belonging to both biovars Ovis and Equi. Additionally, conserved point mutation based on structural variation analysis was also carried out to elucidate the genotype-phenotype correlations and speciation. We observed that the biovars are different at the molecular phylogenetic level and a probable anagenesis is occurring slowly within the species C. pseudotuberculosis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Taken together the results suggest that biovar Equi is forming the biovar Ovis. However, additional analyses using other genes and other bacterial strains are required to further support our anagenesis hypothesis in C. pseudotuberculosis.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biologia Geral, Laboratório de Genética Celular e Molecular, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biologia Geral, Laboratório de Genética Celular e Molecular, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
authors.forename: Pammella
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Teixeira
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biologia Geral, Laboratório de Genética Celular e Molecular, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
authors.forename: Marcela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Azevedo
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biologia Geral, Laboratório de Genética Celular e Molecular, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
authors.forename: Syed Babar
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Jamal
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biologia Geral, Laboratório de Genética Celular e Molecular, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
authors.forename: Sandeep
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tiwari
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biologia Geral, Laboratório de Genética Celular e Molecular, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
authors.forename: Sintia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Almeida
authors.affiliation: Departmento de Genética, Universidade Federal do Pará, Pará, Brazil.
authors.forename: Artur
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Silva
authors.affiliation: Centre for Genomics and Applied Gene Technology, Institute of Integrative Omics and Applied Biotechnology (IIOAB), Nonakuri, Purba, Medinipur, WB-721172, India.
authors.forename: Debmalya
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Barh
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Medicina Veterinária Preventiva, Escola de Veterinária - Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
authors.forename: Elaine Maria Seles
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Dorneles
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Medicina Veterinária Preventiva, Escola de Veterinária - Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
authors.forename: Dionei Joaquim
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Haas
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Medicina Veterinária Preventiva e Saúde Animal, Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia - Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Marcos Bryan
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Heinemann
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Preetam
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ghosh
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Medicina Veterinária Preventiva, Escola de Veterinária - Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
authors.forename: Andrey Pereira
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Lage
authors.affiliation: Aquacen, National Reference Laboratory for Aquatic Animal Diseases, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
authors.forename: Henrique
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Figueiredo
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Bioquímica e Imunologia, Laboratório de Genética Celular e Molecular, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
authors.forename: Rafaela Salgado
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Ferreira
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Biologia Geral, Laboratório de Genética Celular e Molecular, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. vasco@icb.ufmg.br.
authors.forename: Vasco
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Azevedo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D002417:Cattle; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D016925:Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D006041:Goats; D006736:Horses; D009566:Nitrates / Q000378:metabolism; D010802:Phylogeny; D017354:Point Mutation; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000379:methods*; D012756:Sheep
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D009566:Nitrates
keywords: Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis; Evolution; Molecular phylogeny; Structural biology