Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-1-2019
Description
Pyomyositis is a severe bacterial infection of skeletal muscle, commonly affecting children in tropical regions, predominantly caused by Staphylococcus aureus. To understand the contribution of bacterial genomic factors to pyomyositis, we conducted a genome-wide association study of S. aureus cultured from 101 children with pyomyositis and 417 children with asymptomatic nasal carriage attending the Angkor Hospital for Children, Cambodia. We found a strong relationship between bacterial genetic variation and pyomyositis, with estimated heritability 63.8% (95% CI 49.2-78.4%). The presence of the Panton-Valentine leucocidin (PVL) locus increased the odds of pyomyositis 130-fold (p=10- 17.9 ). The signal of association mapped both to the PVL-coding sequence and the sequence immediately upstream. Together these regions explained over 99.9% of heritability (95% CI 93.5-100%). Our results establish staphylococcal pyomyositis, like tetanus and diphtheria, as critically dependent on a single toxin and demonstrate the potential for association studies to identify specific bacterial genes promoting severe human disease.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Citation Information
Young, Bernadette C.; Earle, Sarah G.; Soeng, Sona; Sar, Poda; Kumar, Varun; Hor, Songly; Sar, Vuthy; Bousfield, Rachel; Sanderson, Nicholas D.; Barker, Leanne; Stoesser, Nicole; Emary, Katherine R.W.; Parry, Christopher M.; Nickerson, Emma K.; Turner, Paul; Bowden, Rory; Crook, Derrick; Wyllie, David; Day, Nicholas P.J.; Wilson, Daniel J.; and Moore, Catrin E.. 2019. Panton-Valentine Leucocidin Is the Key Determinant of Staphylococcus aureus Pyomyositis in a Bacterial Gwas. eLife. Vol.8 https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.42486 PMID: 30794157
Copyright Statement
© 2019, Young et al.