Mycoplasma bovis point mutations as genetic markers for antimicrobial resistance revealed by genome-wide association study

The bacterial infection found in cattle, Mycoplasma Bovis, results in severe respiratory issues and poses a mortality risk to farmed cattle. Current outbreak control efforts depend on antimicrobial therapy; however, measures to identify acquired resistance to treatment are limited due to the lack of standardised genetic data and the time required to run these analyses.

Nick Vereecke (Pathosense, Belgium) constructed high-quality genomes for 100 strains of the bacterial infection. Subsequently, these genomes were classified depending on whether the original sample could be treated effectively with antimicrobials; by comparing the two "buckets" of sequences and noting the differences in genotypes, markers that may play a role in antimicrobial resistance were identified. In this study, the data obtained via nanopore sequencing confirmed both new and previously identified mutations implicated in resistance.