Pan-genome analysis of human gastric pathogen H. pylori: comparative genomics and pathogenomics approaches to identify regions associated with pathogenicity and prediction of potential core therapeutic targets.

Helicobacter pylori is a human gastric pathogen implicated as the major cause of peptic ulcer and second leading cause of gastric cancer (~70%) around the world. Conversely, an increased resistance to antibiotics and hindrances in the development of vaccines against H. pylori are observed. Pan-genome analyses of the global representative H. pylori isolates consisting of 39 complete genomes are presented in this paper. Phylogenetic analyses have revealed close relationships among geographically diverse strains of H. pylori. The conservation among these genomes was further analyzed by pan-genome approach; the predicted conserved gene families (1,193) constitute ~77% of the average H. pylori genome and 45% of the global gene repertoire of the species. Reverse vaccinology strategies have been adopted to identify and narrow down the potential core-immunogenic candidates. Total of 28 nonhost homolog proteins were characterized as universal therapeutic targets against H. pylori based on their functional annotation and protein-protein interaction. Finally, pathogenomics and genome plasticity analysis revealed 3 highly conserved and 2 highly variable putative pathogenicity islands in all of the H. pylori genomes been analyzed.

Conserved host-pathogen PPIs. Globally conserved inter-species bacterial PPIs based conserved host-pathogen interactome derived novel target in C. pseudotuberculosis, C. diphtheriae, M. tuberculosis, C. ulcerans, Y. pestis, and E. coli targeted by Piper betel compounds.

Although attempts have been made to unveil protein-protein and host-pathogen interactions based on molecular insights of important biological events and pathogenesis in various organisms, these efforts have not yet been reported in Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis (Cp), the causative agent of Caseous Lymphadenitis (CLA). In this study, we used computational approaches to develop common conserved intra-species protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks first time for four Cp strains (Cp FRC41, Cp 316, Cp 3/99-5, and Cp P54B96) followed by development of a common conserved inter-species bacterial PPI using conserved proteins in multiple pathogens (Y. pestis, M. tuberculosis, C. diphtheriae, C. ulcerans, E. coli, and all four Cp strains) and E. Coli based experimentally validated PPI data. Furthermore, the interacting proteins in the common conserved inter-species bacterial PPI were used to generate a conserved host-pathogen interaction (HP-PPI) network considering human, goat, sheep, bovine, and horse as hosts. The HP-PPI network was validated, and acetate kinase (Ack) was identified as a novel broad spectrum target. Ceftiofur, penicillin, and two natural compounds derived from Piper betel were predicted to inhibit Ack activity. One of these Piper betel compounds found to inhibit E. coli O157:H7 growth similar to penicillin. The target specificity of these betel compounds, their effects on other studied pathogens, and other in silico results are currently being validated and the results are promising.