This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Other Versions of this Article: JCM.02224-06v1 45/4/1274    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Reprints and Permissions Copyright Information Books from ASM Press MicrobeWorld Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Vassileva, M. Articles by Ohta, M. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Vassileva, M. Articles by Ohta, M.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Journal of Clinical Microbiology, April 2007, p. 1274-1277, Vol. 45, No. 4
0095-1137/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.02224-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

A New Phylogenetic Cluster of Cereulide-Producing Bacillus cereus Strains

Department of Bacteriology, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan,¹ Nagoya City Public Health Research Institute, Nagoya, Japan,² Department of Microbiology, Nagoya City University, Nagoya, Japan³

Received 31 October 2006/ Returned for modification 18 December 2006/ Accepted 8 February 2007

Phenotypic and molecular studies have established that cereulide-producing strains of Bacillus cereus are a distinct and probably recently emerged clone within the Bacillus population. We analyzed a set of B. cereus strains, both cereulide producers and nonproducers, by multilocus sequence typing. Consistent with earlier reports, nonproducers demonstrated high heterogeneity. Most cereulide-producing strains and all flagellar antigen type H1 strains were allocated to the known sequence type of exclusively emetic B. cereus strains. Several cereulide-producing strains, however, were recovered at a new phylogenetic location, all of which were serotype H3 or H12. We hypothesize that the group of cereulide producers is diversifying progressively, probably by lateral transfer of the corresponding gene complex.

Published ahead of print on 21 February 2007.

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Tourasse, N. J., Kolsto, A.-B. (2008). SuperCAT: a supertree database for combined and integrative multilocus sequence typing analysis of the Bacillus cereus group of bacteria (including B. cereus, B. anthracis and B. thuringiensis). Nucleic Acids Res 36: D461-D468 [Abstract] [Full Text]