The history, genome and biology of NCTC 30: A non-pandemic Vibrio cholerae isolate from World War One

Matthew J. Dorman, Leanne Kane, Daryl Domman, Jake D. Turnbull, Claire Cormie, Mohammed Abbas Fazal, David A. Goulding, Julie E. Russell, Sarah Alexander, Nicholas R. Thomson*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The sixth global cholera pandemic lasted from 1899 to 1923. However, despite widespread fear of the disease and of its negative effects on troop morale, very few soldiers in the British Expeditionary Forces contracted cholera between 1914 and 1918. Here, we have revived and sequenced the genome of NCTC 30, a 102-year-old Vibrio cholerae isolate, which we believe is the oldest publicly available live V. cholerae strain in existence. NCTC 30 was isolated in 1916 from a British soldier convalescent in Egypt. We found that this strain does not encode cholera toxin, thought to be necessary to cause cholera, and is not part of V. cholerae lineages responsible for the pandemic disease. We also show that NCTC 30, which predates the introduction of penicillin-based antibiotics, harbours a functional b-lactamase antibiotic resistance gene. Our data corroborate and provide molecular explanations for previous phenotypic studies of NCTC 30 and provide a new high-quality genome sequence for historical, non-pandemic V. cholerae.

Original languageEnglish
Article number20182025
JournalProceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Volume286
Issue number1900
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 10 Apr 2019

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by Wellcome (grant no. 206194). M.J.D. is supported by a Wellcome Sanger Institute PhD Studentship.

Keywords

  • Vibrio cholerae
  • World War One
  • antimicrobial resistance
  • cholera
  • flagella
  • long-read sequencing

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