Molecular characteristics of the omp A gene of serotype B Chlamydia trachomatis in Qinghai Tibetan primary school students

• Published in: 中国科学：生命科学英文版 no. 6; pp. 561 - 570
• Main Author: Xue Li Shaoya Zhang Qingfeng Liang Mei Wang Ailian Hu Xiuyuan Li Benshan Yang Mingxin Zhang Ningli Wang Xinxin Lu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: OMP; 分子特征; 外膜蛋白基因; 小学生; 沙眼衣原体; 藏族; 血清型; 青海
• ISSN: 1674-7305; 1869-1889

To study the molecular characteristics of Chlamydia trachomatis, the major outer membrane protein gene（omp A） of C. trachomatis from primary school students with trachoma residing in the Qinghai Tibetan area was sequenced and compared with the same serotype in Gen Bank. In Jianshetang Primary School and Galeng Central Primary School in the Galeng Tibetan Township of Qinghai Haidong Sala Autonomous County, scraped samples were collected from the upper tarsal conjunctiva and lower conjunctival sac of both eyes of 45 students with trachoma, stored at 4°C, and transported to Beijing Tongren Hospital by air within 24 h. The samples were screened for C. trachomatis by real-time PCR. The omp A gene from the C. trachomatis-positive samples was amplified by nested PCR. The serotype was confirmed by National Center for Biotechnology Information（NCBI） BLAST search and homology analysis. The entire omp A gene sequence was compared with the corresponding gene sequences of serotype B strains available in Gen Bank. Of the 45 students aged 6–13 years with trachoma, 26 C. trachomatis-positive students were identified by the initial real-time PCR screening（average age,（9.09±1.63） years; sex ratio, 1.0）, accounting for 57.78%（26/45）. The cycle threshold values for real-time PCR were 16.79–37.77. Half（13/26） of C. trachomatis-positive students had a bacterial copy number of 〉105. The compliance rate of the omp A gene sequences with the C. trachomatis serotype B strains in Gen Bank was up to 99%. Two novel genetic mutations were found when the omp A gene was compared with those of the 11 serotype B strains in Gen Bank. The two non-synonymous mutations were located at（i） position 271 in the second constant domain, an adenine（A） to guanine（G） substitution（ACT？GCT）, changing the amino acid at position 91 from threonine to alanine（Thr？Ala） in all 26 strains; and（ii） position 887 in the fourth variable domain, a cytosine（C） to thymine（T） substitution（GCA？GTA）, changing the amino acid at residue 296 from alanine to valine（Ala？Val） in four of the 26 strains. Six mutations were identified relative to ATCC VR-573. The strains could be divided into two gene clusters according to the mutation at nucleotide position 887： CQZ-1（China Qinghai Tibetan-1） and CQZ-2（China Qinghai Tibetan-2）. We thus detected two novel serotype B mutant strains of C. trachomatis among study subjects with trachoma.