"Gene accordions" cause genotypic and phenotypic heterogeneity in clonal populations of Staphylococcus aureus

Darya Belikova, Angelika Jochim, Jeffrey Power, Matthew T G Holden, Simon Heilbronner*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Gene tandem amplifications are thought to drive bacterial evolution, but they are transient in the absence of selection, making their investigation challenging. Here, we analyze genomic sequences of Staphylococcus aureus USA300 isolates from the same geographical area to identify variations in gene copy number, which we confirm by long-read sequencing. We find several hotspots of variation, including the csa1 cluster encoding lipoproteins known to be immunogenic. We also show that the csa1 locus expands and contracts during bacterial growth in vitro and during systemic infection of mice, and recombination creates rapid heterogeneity in initially clonal cultures. Furthermore, csa1 copy number variants differ in their immunostimulatory capacity, revealing a mechanism by which gene copy number variation can modulate the host immune response.

Original languageEnglish
Article number3526
Number of pages15
JournalNature Communications
Volume11
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 14 Jul 2020

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