Molecular characterization of Neisseria meningitidis isolates recovered from 11-19-year-old meningococcal carriers in Salvador, Brazil

PLoS One. 2017 Sep 20;12(9):e0185038. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0185038. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Characterization of meningococci isolated from the pharynx is essential towards understanding the dynamics of meningococcal carriage and disease. Meningococcal isolates, collected from adolescents resident in Salvador, Brazil during 2014, were characterized by multilocus sequence typing, genotyping or whole-genome sequencing. Most were nongroupable (61.0%), followed by genogroups B (11.9%) and Y (8.5%). We identified 34 different sequence types (STs), eight were new STs, distributed among 14 clonal complexes (cc), cc1136 represented 20.3% of the nongroupable isolates. The porA and fetA genotypes included P1.18,25-37 (11.9%), P1.18-1,3 (10.2%); F5-5 (23.7%), F4-66 (16.9%) and F1-7 (13.6%). The porB class 3 protein and the fHbp subfamily A (variants 2 and 3) genotypes were found in 93.0 and 71.0% of the isolates, respectively. NHBA was present in all isolates, and while most lacked NadA (94.9%), we detected the hyperinvasive lineages B:P1.19,15:F5-1:ST-639 (cc32); C:P1.22,14-6:F3-9:ST-3780 (cc103) and W:P1.5,2:F1-1:ST-11 (cc11). This is the first report on the genetic diversity and vaccine antigen prevalence among N. meningitidis carriage isolates in the Northeast of Brazil. This study highlights the need for ongoing characterization of meningococcal isolates following the introduction of vaccines and for determining public health intervention strategies.

MeSH terms

  • Adhesins, Bacterial / genetics
  • Adolescent
  • Antigens, Bacterial / genetics
  • Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins / genetics
  • Bacterial Proteins / genetics
  • Brazil
  • Carrier Proteins / genetics
  • Carrier State
  • Child
  • Genetic Variation
  • Genotype
  • Humans
  • Multilocus Sequence Typing
  • Neisseria meningitidis / genetics*
  • Neisseria meningitidis / isolation & purification*
  • Phylogeny*
  • Porins / genetics
  • Young Adult

Substances

  • Adhesins, Bacterial
  • Antigens, Bacterial
  • Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins
  • Bacterial Proteins
  • Carrier Proteins
  • FrpB protein, bacteria
  • NHBA protein, Neisseria meningitidis
  • NadA protein, Neisseria meningitidis
  • Porins
  • factor H-binding protein, Neisseria meningitidis
  • porin protein, Neisseria

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Ministério da Saúde, Brazil (http://portalsaude.saude.gov.br/index.php/o-ministerio/principal/secretarias/svs) (grant number TC335/2013) [LCC], and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado da Bahia – FAPESB (http://www.fapesb.ba.gov.br) (grant number SUS 007/2014) [LCC]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.