Genomic characteristics of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates of cutaneous tuberculosis

You-Ming Mei; Wen-Yue Zhang; Ji-Ya Sun; Hai-Qin Jiang; Ying Shi; Jing-Shu Xiong; Le Wang; Yan-Qing Chen; Si-Yu Long; Chun Pan; Tao Luo; Hong-Sheng Wang

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1165916

Genomic characteristics of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates of cutaneous tuberculosis

Front Microbiol. 2023 May 17:14:1165916. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1165916. eCollection 2023.

Authors

You-Ming Mei^{1

2}, Wen-Yue Zhang^{1

2}, Ji-Ya Sun^{3

4}, Hai-Qin Jiang^{1

2}, Ying Shi^{1

2}, Jing-Shu Xiong^{1

2}, Le Wang^{1

2}, Yan-Qing Chen^{1

2}, Si-Yu Long^{1

2}, Chun Pan^{1

2}, Tao Luo⁵, Hong-Sheng Wang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Hospital of Skin Disease, Institute of Dermatology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Nanjing, China.
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology for Skin Diseases and STIs, Nanjing, China.
³ Center for Systems Medicine, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Suzhou, China.
⁴ Suzhou Institute of Systems Medicine, Suzhou, China.
⁵ Department of Pathogen Biology, West China School of Basic Medical Sciences and Forensic Medicine, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.

Abstract

Objectives: Cutaneous tuberculosis with various manifestations can be divided into several clinical types according to the host's immune status and infective route. However, the etiological factors of this disease remain unclear. The objective of this study is to investigate the pathogens associated with the occurrence and different types of cutaneous tuberculosis.

Methods: 58 Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains isolated from cutaneous tuberculosis over the last 20 years were sequenced and analyzed for genomic characteristics including lineage distribution, drug-resistance mutations, and mutations potentially associated with different sites of infection.

Results: The M. tuberculosis strains from four major types of cutaneous tuberculosis and pulmonary tuberculosis shared similar genotypes and genomic composition. The strains isolated from cutaneous tuberculosis had a lower rate of drug resistance. Phylogenic analysis showed cutaneous tuberculosis and pulmonary tuberculosis isolates scattered on the three. Several SNPs in metabolism related genes exhibited a strong correlation with different infection sites.

Conclusions: The different infection sites of TB may barely be affected by large genomic changes in M. tuberculosis isolates, but the significant difference in SNPs of drug resistance gene and metabolism-related genes still deserves more attention.

Keywords: Mycobacterium tuberculosis; comparative genomics; cutaneous tuberculosis; mycobacteria infection; whole genome sequence.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by grants from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2019YFE0113300), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 81972950, 82173431, 82103748, and 82203940), and the Nanjing Incubation Program for National Clinical Research Center (2019060001).