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Lookup NU author(s): Lenshina Mpeyako, Adam HartORCiD, Dr Nick Bailey, Professor Robert HirtORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Introduction: The oral trichomonad Trichomonas tenax is increasingly 82 appreciated as a likely contributor to periodontitis, a chronic inflammatory 83 disease induced by dysbiotic microbiota, in humans and domestic animals and 84 is strongly associated with its worst prognosis. Our current understanding of 85 the molecular basis of T. tenax interactions with host cells and the microbiota 86 of the oral cavity are still rather limited. One laboratory strain of T. tenax (Hs- 87 4:NIH/ATCC 30207) can be grown axenically and two draft genome assemblies 88 have been published for that strain, although the structural and functional 89 annotation of these genomes is not available. 90Methods: GenSAS and Galaxy were used to annotate two publicly available 91 draft genomes for T. tenax, with a focus on protein-coding genes. A custom 92 pipeline was used to annotate the CAZymes for T. tenax and the human 93 sexually transmitted parasite Trichomonas vaginalis, the most well-characterized 94 trichomonad. A combination of bioinformatics analyses was used to screen for 95 homologs of T. vaginalis virulence and colonization factors within the T. tenax 96 annotated proteins. 97Results: Our annotation of the two T. tenax draft genome sequences and their 98 comparison with T. vaginalis proteins provide evidence for several candidate 99 virulence factors. These include candidate surface proteins, secreted proteins 100 and enzymes mediating potential interactions with host cells and/or members 101 of the oral microbiota. The CAZymes annotation identified a broad range of 102 glycoside hydrolase (GH) families, with the majority of these being shared 103between the two Trichomonas species. 104 105 Discussion: The presence of candidate T. tenax virulence genes supports the 106hypothesis that this species is associated with periodontitis through direct and 107 indirect mechanisms. Notably, several GH proteins could represent potential new 108 virulence factors for both Trichomonas species. These data support a model 109 where T. tenax interactions with host cells and members of the oral microbiota 110 could synergistically contribute to the damaging inflammation characteristic of 111 periodontitis, supporting a causal link between T. tenax and periodontitis.
Author(s): Mpeyako LA, Hart AJ, Bailey NP, Carlton JM, Henrissat B, Sullivan SA, Hirt RP
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Frontiers in Microbiology
Year: 2024
Volume: 15
Online publication date: 17/07/2024
Acceptance date: 28/06/2024
Date deposited: 18/07/2024
ISSN (electronic): 1664-302X
Publisher: Frontiers Research Foundation
URL: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2024.1437572
DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1437572
Data Access Statement: The original draft genome sequence data analyzed in this study are available at the NCBI (NCBI Genome assemblies PRJEB22701 and ASM2309173v1). All the key outputs of the sequence analyses for this study can be found in the Supplementary material. They are all described in the main text and in the Supplementary material.
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