• Shirley Yi Fen Hii, Norazah Ahmad, Rohaidah Hashim, Yii Ling Liow, Muhammad Adib Abd Wahab, and Mohd Khairul Nizam Mohd Khalid.
• Bacteriology Unit, Infectious Diseases Research Centre, Institute for Medical Research, Jalan Pahang, 50588, Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. shirley@imr.gov.my.
• BMC Res Notes. 2018 Oct 25; 11 (1): 760.

ObjectiveThere is a lack of study in Corynebacterium diphtheriae isolates in Malaysia. The alarming surge of cases in year 2016 lead us to evaluate the local clinical C. diphtheriae strains in Malaysia. We conducted single nucleotide polymorphism phylogenetic analysis on the core and pan-genome as well as toxin and diphtheria toxin repressor (DtxR) genes of Malaysian C. diphtheriae isolates from the year 1986-2016.ResultsThe comparison between core and pan-genomic comparison showed variation in the distribution of C. diphtheriae. The local isolates portrayed a heterogenous trait and a close relationship between Malaysia's and Belarus's, Africa's and India's strains were observed. A toxigenic C. diphtheriae clone was noted to be circulating in the Malaysian population for nearly 30 years and from our study, the non-toxigenic and toxigenic C. diphtheriae strains can be differentiated significantly into two large clusters, A and B respectively. Analysis against vaccine strain, PW8 portrayed that the amino acid composition of toxin and DtxR in Malaysia's local strains are well-conserved and there was no functional defect noted. Hence, the change in efficacy of the currently used toxoid vaccine is unlikely to occur.

16 keywords...

hide…