RT Journal Article
T1 Revisiting Mycobacterium bovis SB0121 genetic diversity reflects the complexity behind bovine tuberculosis persistence in Spain
A1 Lorente Leal, Víctor
A1 Pozo Piñol, Pilar
A1 Bezos Garrido, Javier
A1 Collado, Soledad
A1 Vicente, Joaquín
A1 Stuber, Tod
A1 Álvarez Sánchez, Julio
A1 Juan Ferré, Lucía De
A1 Romero Martínez, Beatriz
AB Identifying the causes of tuberculosis (TB) chronicity in cattle herds in Spain is a complex endeavour, mainly due to the multiple factors involved in persistence and the clonal population structure of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. This study assessed the genomic diversity among M. bovis isolates belonging to SB0121, the most prevalent genotype in Spain, in chronically-infected herds. A total of 70 M. bovis isolates from 22 herds, located in six Spanish provinces, in which M. bovis SB0121 was isolated in at least three different sampling events were sequenced. Forty-three isolates from wildlife and cattle herds from the same or neighbouring municipalities to the problem herds were also included to identify putative local transmission events. The within-herd analysis revealed a highly complex scenario, in which the majority (95.45 %; n = 21) of the herds were affected by highly distant strains (> 12 SNP differences), probably as a result of separate introductions. Highly similar isolates (< 6 SNPs) were retrieved in different sampling events from 11 herds, likely indicating active transmission of the outbreak strain or continued exposure to the same source of infection. The between-herd and interspecies comparison suggested the occurrence of several putative epidemiological links between cattle and wildlife species from the same or neighbouring municipalities, reflecting the complex epidemiology of the disease in some of the studied areas. The findings of this study highlight the usefulness of whole genome sequencing to study bTB breakdowns and pinpoints its potential for unravelling possible sources of persistence in cattle herds
PB Elsevier
SN 0167-5877
YR 2025
FD 2025-06
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/119583
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/119583
LA eng
NO Lorente-Leal, V., Pozo, P., Bezos, J., Collado, S., Vicente, J., Stuber, T., Álvarez, J., de Juan, L., & Romero, B. (2025). Revisiting Mycobacterium bovis SB0121 genetic diversity reflects the complexity behind bovine tuberculosis persistence in Spain. Preventive veterinary medicine, 239, 106519. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2025.106519
NO Credit Authorship Contribution Statement: Collado Soledad: Writing – review & editing, Resources, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Bezos Javier: Writing – review & editing, Resources, Methodology, Funding acquisition. Pozo Pilar: Writing – review & editing, Validation, Methodology. Lorente Leal Víctor: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Visualization, Software, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. de Juan Lucía: Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Resources, Funding acquisition, Conceptualization. Alvarez ´ Julio: Writing – review & editing, Validation, Supervision, Methodology. Stuber Tod: Writing – review & editing, Validation, Methodology. Vicente Joaquín: Writing – review & editing, Resources. Romero Beatriz: Supervision, Resources, Project administration, Funding acquisition, Conceptualization.
NO Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación (España)
NO Universidad Complutense de Madrid
NO Banco Santander
DS Docta Complutense
RD 13 ago 2025