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. 2024 Feb 28;12(3):485.
doi: 10.3390/microorganisms12030485.

Unveiling the Mutations and Conservation of InlA in Listeria monocytogenes

Lingling Li  1 , Yan Wang  1 , Ji Pu  1 , Jinni Chen  1 , Lingyun Liu  1   2 , Pan Mao  1 , Hui Sun  1 , Xia Luo  1 , Changyun Ye  1
Affiliations

Unveiling the Mutations and Conservation of InlA in Listeria monocytogenes

Lingling Li et al. Microorganisms. .

Abstract

Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) is a pathogen that is transmitted through contaminated food and causes the illness known as listeriosis. The virulence factor InlA plays a crucial role in the invasion of L. monocytogenes into the human intestinal epithelium. In addition, InlA enhances the pathogenicity of host strains, and different strains of L. monocytogenes contain varying variations of InlA. Our study analyzed a total of 4393 published L. monocytogenes genomes from 511 sequence types (STs) of diverse origins. We identified 300 unique InlA protein sequence types (PSTs) and revealed 45 highly mutated amino acid sites. The leucine-rich repeat (LRR) region was found to be the most conserved among the InlA, while the protein A (PA) region experienced the highest mutation rate. Two new types of mutations were identified in the B-repeat region of InlA. Correspondence analysis (CA) was used to analyze correlations between the lineages or 10 most common sequence types (STs) and amino acid (aa) sites. ST8 was strongly correlated with site 192_F, 454_T. ST7 exhibited a strong correlation with site 51_A, 573_E, 648_S, and 664_A, and it was also associated with ST6 and site 544_N, 671_A, 738_B, 739_B, 740_B, and 774_Y. Additionally, a strong correlation between ST1 and site 142_S, 738_N, ST2 and site 2_K, 142_S, 738_N, as well as ST87 and site2_K, 738_N was demonstrated. Our findings contribute significantly to the understanding of the distribution, composition, and conservation of InlA in L. monocytogenes. These findings also suggest a potential role of InlA in supporting molecular epidemiological tracing efforts.

Keywords: InlA; Listeria monocytogenes; ST; amino acid; protein sequence type.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Distribution characteristics and domain sequence types of Listeria monocytogenes. (a) Distribution of four Lineages (I, II, III, and IV) in five sources. (b–e) Distribution of top 10 sequence types (STs) in four Lineages among the 4393 L. monocytogenes strains.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Distribution characteristics of InlA sequences in this study. Distribution of InlA types (a) or strains (b) in group A. Map of the 261 mutation sites in the protein sequences of group A, where the red boxes mark the sites where more than 10 types of protein sequences are mutated (c). Distribution of InlA types (d) or strains (e) in group B. The length of truncated of InlA and nucleotide position of mutation in group B (f).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Alignment and schematic representation of the InlA mutant and EGDe (InlA_1). (a) Represents the overall schematic diagram of InlA alignment, and (b) shows the specific location of the mutation. SS: Signal Sequence.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Distribution of 47 InlA types (n ≧ 10). The InlA number, the lineage, source, location, ST, and CC are shown on the right rows. The color legend is shown above.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Correspondence analysis (CA) between the aa site (n > 50, represented in blue) and lineages (a) or ten most prevalent STs (b) (represented in red) of Listeria monocytogenes strains. “B” represents the deletion of aa.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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