Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Correspondence: lmc cornell. Anthrax-causing members of Bacillus cereus sensu lato s.
While most anthrax-causing strains resemble B. Here, whole-genome sequencing was used to characterize three B. Comparison of the three genomes sequenced here to all publicly available, high-quality B. Comparatively, a ST genome associated with a case in Texas was most closely related to B.
Overall, results presented here provide insights into the evolution of anthrax-causing B. Keywords: anthrax, Bacillus anthracis , Bacillus cereus , Bacillus tropicus , Bacillus cereus biovar Anthracis, Bacillus cereus group, bioterrorism, taxonomy, whole-genome sequencing, phylogenetics. Bacillus cereus sensu lato s. Among the most notorious B. The three anthrax toxin proteins i include edema factor EF , lethal factor LF , and protective antigen PA ; these polypeptides are encoded by the cya, lef, and pagA genes, respectively, which are located on the pXO1 plasmid [ 7 , 11 , 12 ].
The B. In addition to its ability to produce anthrax toxins and a polyglutamate capsule, the B. Notably, on a genomic scale, members of the historical B. For example, using the average nucleotide identity ANI metric of genomic similarity [ 3 , 19 , 20 ], members of the historical B. The majority of anthrax-causing B. Specifically, like the historical B. However, unlike the historical B. Notably, some anthrax-causing B. Additionally, some anthrax-causing B.
The isolation of anthrax-causing B. However, in , the U. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC isolated such strains from two separate cases of anthrax-like illness among welders in the U. Here, we employed whole-genome sequencing WGS to characterize three B.
