Features of Sporulation of the Main Genetic Lines of Bacillus Anthracis

The aim of the work was to characterize sporulation genes and proteins in Bacillus anthracis strains of major genetic lineages.Materials and methods. Genome analysis was carried out in silico using the genome of the Ames Ancestor strain as a reference one, 47 B. anthracis strains from the GenBank NCBI database, belonging to the main lineages A, B, C, the genome of the CI strain Bacillus cereus biovar anthracis, 7 strains from the collection of Stavropol Research Anti-Plague Institute of the Rospotrebnadzor, as well as the NCBI Protein Database resource. Identification of polymorphisms was performed in BLASTn, BLASTp, MEGA X, MAUVE, and Tandem Repeat Finder software. Gene and protein sequences were aligned using MEGA X program.Results and discussion. A comparison of polymorphisms in sporulation proteins and genes of three major genetic lineages has showed that the number of all forms in B. anthracis strains of B, C lineages and Bacillus cereus biovar anthracis exceeds those in strains of lineage A by 4,5–10, 6,8–92 and 160–2078 times, respectively. A larger number of non-synonymous SNPs in sporulation genes with changes in the amino acid composition and function of proteins in B. anthracis strains of the major genetic lines B, C and B. cereus biovar anthracis than in strains of lineage A suggests their limited adaptive capabilities and may be one of the explanations for their lower prevalence as compared to line A.