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MgtC as a Horizontally-Acquired Virulence Factor of Intracellular Bacterial Pathogens: Evidence from Molecular Phylogeny and Comparative Genomics

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Abstract

MgtC is a virulence factor required for intramacrophage survival and growth in low Mg2+ medium in two pathogens that are not phylogenetically related, Salmonella typhimurium and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In S. typhimurium, mgtC is carried by the SPI-3 pathogenicity island and hybridization studies have suggested that the distribution of mgtC among enterobacteria is limited. In the present study, we searched for the presence of mgtC-like sequences in eubacterial genomes. Analyses of MgtC-like proteins phylogeny and mgtC-like chromosomal context support the hypothesis that mgtC has been acquired by horizontal gene transfer repeatedly throughout bacterial evolution. In addition, the phylogenetic analysis revealed the existence of a subgroup of proteins, that includes the S. typhimurium and M. tuberculosis MgtC proteins, as well as MgtC-related proteins from other pathogens that are able to survive in macrophages, B. melitensis and Y. pestis. We propose that MgtC has a similar function in all these distantly related pathogens, most likely providing the ability to grow in a low Mg2+ environment.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Tibayrenc (director of the UMR CNRS-IRD 9926, Montpellier) for his support, E.A. Groisman (Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri), and D. O’Callaghan (Inserm U431, Nîmes, France) for critical reading of the manuscript and two anonymous reviewers for comments on a previous version of the manuscript.

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  1. Unité Mixte de Recherche CNRS-IRD 9926, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, National de la Recherche Scientifique, 911, Avenue Agropolis, B.P. 64501, F-34394 Montpellier Cedex 5, France

    Anne-Béatrice Blanc-Potard & Bénédicte Lafay

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  1. Anne-Béatrice Blanc-Potard
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  2. Bénédicte Lafay
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Correspondence to Anne-Béatrice Blanc-Potard.

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Blanc-Potard, AB., Lafay, B. MgtC as a Horizontally-Acquired Virulence Factor of Intracellular Bacterial Pathogens: Evidence from Molecular Phylogeny and Comparative Genomics . J Mol Evol 57, 479–486 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-003-2496-4

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