Comparative Genomic Characterization of Three Streptococcus parauberis Strains in Fish Pathogen, as Assessed by Wide-Genome Analyses

Abstract

Streptococcus parauberis, which is the main causative agent of streptococcosis among olive flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) in northeast Asia, can be distinctly divided into two groups (type I and type II) by an agglutination test. Here, the whole genome sequences of two Japanese strains (KRS-02083 and KRS-02109) were determined and compared with the previously determined genome of a Korean strain (KCTC 11537). The genomes of S. parauberis are intermediate in size and have lower GC contents than those of other streptococci. We annotated 2,236 and 2,048 genes in KRS-02083 and KRS-02109, respectively. Our results revealed that the three S. parauberis strains contain different genomic insertions and deletions. In particular, the genomes of Korean and Japanese strains encode different factors for sugar utilization; the former encodes the phosphotransferase system (PTS) for sorbose, whereas the latter encodes proteins for lactose hydrolysis, respectively. And the KRS-02109 strain, specifically, was the type II strain found to be able to resist phage infection through the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas system and which might contribute valuably to serologically distribution. Thus, our genome-wide association study shows that polymorphisms can affect pathogen responses, providing insight into biological/biochemical pathways and phylogenetic diversity.