Phylogenetic and protein prediction analysis reveals the taxonomically diverse distribution of virulence factors in the Bacillus cereus group

Abstract

AbstractBacillus cereus is a food contaminant with widely varying enterotoxic potential of its virulence proteins. In this article, phylogenetic analysis of the whole-genome amino acid sequences of 41 strains, evolutionary distance calculation of the amino acid sequences of the virulence genes, and functional and structural prediction of the virulence proteins were performed to reveal the taxonomically diverse distribution of virulence factors. The genome evolution of the strains showed a clustering trend based on the coding virulence genes. The strains of B. cereus have evolved into non-toxic risk and toxic risk clusters with medium-high- and medium-low-risk clusters. The distances of evolutionary transfer relative to housekeeping genes of incomplete virulence genes were greater than those of complete virulence genes, and the distance values of HblACD were higher than those of nheABC and CytK among the complete virulence genes. Cytoplasmic localization was impossible for all the virulence proteins, and NheB, NheC, Hbl-B, and Hbl-L1 were extracellular according to predictive analysis. Nhe and Hbl proteins except CytK had similar spatial structures. The predicted structures of Nhe and Hbl mainly showed ‘head’ and ‘tail’ domains. The ‘head’ of NheA and Hbl-B, including two α-helices separated by β-tongue strands, might play a special role in Nhe trimers and Hbl trimers, respectively. The ‘cap’ of CytK, which includes two ‘latches’ with many β-sheets, formed a β-barrel structure with pores, and a ‘rim’ balanced the structure. The evolution of B. cereus strains showed a clustering tendency based on the coding virulence genes, and the complete virulence-gene operon combination had higher relative genetic stability. The beta-tongue or latch associated with β-sheet folding might play an important role in the binding of virulence structures and pore-forming toxins in B. cereus.