Database for the ampC alleles in Acinetobacter baumannii

PLoS One. 2017 May 1;12(5):e0176695. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0176695. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Acinetobacter baumannii is a troublesome opportunistic pathogen with a high capacity for clonal dissemination. We announce the establishment of a database for the ampC locus in A. baumannii, in which novel ampC alleles are differentiated based on the occurrence of ≥ 1 nucleotide change, regardless of whether it is silent or missense. The database is openly accessible at the pubmlst platform for A. baumannii (http://pubmlst.org/abaumannii/). Forty-eight distinctive alleles of the ampC locus have so far been identified and deposited in the database. Isolates from clonal complex 1 (CC1), according to the Pasteur multilocus sequence typing scheme, had a variety of the ampC locus alleles, including alleles 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 17, and 18. On the other hand, isolates from CC2 had the ampC alleles 2, 3, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, and 46. Allele 3 was characteristic for sequence types ST3 or ST32. The ampC alleles 10, 16, and 25 were characteristic for CC10, ST16, and CC25, respectively. Our study points out that novel gene databases, in which alleles are numbered based on differences in their nucleotide identities, should replace traditional records that use amino acid substitutions to define new alleles.

MeSH terms

  • Acinetobacter baumannii / genetics*
  • Alleles*
  • Bacterial Proteins / genetics*
  • Databases, Nucleic Acid*
  • Genetic Load
  • Internet
  • Molecular Epidemiology
  • Protein Isoforms
  • Sequence Analysis

Substances

  • Bacterial Proteins
  • Protein Isoforms

Grants and funding

This work was supported by project grants from the Swedish Research Council (VR-NT 2012-4638, VR-MH 2013-3878, and VR-MH 2015-03007) and The Kempe Foundations (JCK-1527). The work was performed as part of the Umeå Centre for Microbial Research (UCMR) Linnaeus Program supported by Umeå University and the Swedish Research Council (349-2007-8673). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.