Coinfection of a yaws patient with two closely related Treponema pallidum subsp. pertenue strains: A rare event with potential evolutionary implications

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Authors

MEDAPPA Monica POSPÍŠILOVÁ Petra JOHN Lucy N GONZÁLEZ-BEIRAS Camila MITJA Oriol ŠMAJS David

Year of publication 2024
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Acta Tropica
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Medicine

Citation
Web https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001706X24001360?via%3Dihub
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actatropica.2024.107254
Keywords Treponema pallidum subsp. pertenue (TPE); Yaws; Coinfection; Inter-strain recombination; TPE allelic profiles; PCR chimeric clones
Attached files
Description The etiological agent of yaws is the spirochete Treponema pallidum (TP) subsp. pertenue (TPE) and infects the children of Papua New Guinea, causing ulcerative skin lesions that impairs normal growth and development. Closely related strains of Treponema pallidum subsp. pertenue, JE11, and TE13 were detected in an ulcer biospecimen derived from a 5-year-old yaws patient. Cloning experiments validated the presence of two distinct but similar genotypes, namely TE13 and JE11, co-occurring within a single host. While coinfection with highly related TPE strains has only limited epidemiological and clinical relevance, this is the first documented coinfection with genetically distinct TP strains in a single patient. Similar coinfections in the past were explained by the existence of over a dozen recombinant loci present in the TP genomes as a result of inter-strain or inter-subspecies recombination events following an anticipated scenario of TP coinfection, i.e., uptake of foreign DNA and DNA recombination.
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