Authors

Anna Janowicz, Fabrizio De Massisa, Massimo Ancoraa, Cesare Cammàa, Claudio Patavinoa, Antonio Battistib, Karola Priorc, Dag Harmsenc, Holger Scholzd, Katiuscia Zillia, Lorena Sacchinia, Elisabetta Di Giannatalea and Giuliano Garofolo

Abstract [relayed from jcm.asm.org]

The use of whole genome sequencing (WGS) using next generation sequencing (NGS) technology has become a widely accepted method for microbiology laboratories in the application of molecular typing for outbreak tracing and genomic epidemiology. Several studies demonstrated the usefulness of WGS data analysis through single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) calling from a reference sequence analysis for Brucella melitensis, whereas gene-by-gene comparison through core-genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST) has not been explored so far. The current study developed an allele-based cgMLST method and compared its performance to the genome-wide SNP approach and the traditional MLVA on a defined sample collection. The dataset comprised of 37 epidemiologically linked animal cases of brucellosis as well as 71 isolates with unknown epidemiological status composed of human and animal samples collected in Italy.