The mutational signatures of poor treatment outcomes on the drug-susceptible Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome

  1. Yiwang Chen
  2. Qi Jiang
  3. Mijiti Peierdun
  4. Howard E Takiff
  5. Qian Gao  Is a corresponding author
  1. Fudan University, China
  2. Wuhan University, China
  3. Xinjiang Medical University, China
  4. Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas, Venezuela

Abstract

Drug resistance is a known risk factor for poor tuberculosis (TB) treatment outcomes, but the contribution of other bacterial factors to poor outcomes in drug susceptible TB is less well understood. Here, we generate a population-based dataset of drug-susceptible Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) isolates from China to identify factors associated with poor treatment outcomes. We analyzed whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data of MTB strains from 3196 patients, including 3105 patients with good and 91 patients with poor treatment outcomes, and linked genomes to patient epidemiological data. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) was performed to identify bacterial genomic variants associated with poor outcomes. Risk factors identified by logistic regression analysis were used in clinical models to predict treatment outcomes. GWAS identified fourteen MTB fixed mutations associated with poor treatment outcomes, but only 24.2% (22/91) of strains from patients with poor outcomes carried at least one of these mutations. Isolates from patients with poor outcomes showed a higher ratio of reactive oxygen species (ROS)-associated mutations compared to isolates from patients with good outcomes (26.3% vs 22.9%, t test, P=0.027). Patient age, sex, and duration of diagnostic delay were also independently associated with poor outcomes. Bacterial factors alone had poor power to predict poor outcomes with an AUC of 0.58. The AUC with host factors alone was 0.70, but increased significantly to 0.74 (DeLong's test, P = 0.01) when bacterial factors were also included. In conclusion, although we identified MTB genomic mutations that are significantly associated with poor treatment outcomes in drug-susceptible TB cases, their effects appear to be limited.

Data availability

Files containing sequencing reads were deposited in the National Institutes of Health Sequence Read Archive under BioProject PRJNA869190.

The following data sets were generated
The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Yiwang Chen

    School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Qi Jiang

    School of Public Health, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Mijiti Peierdun

    Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Xinjiang Medical University, Urumqi, China
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Howard E Takiff

    Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas, Caracas, Venezuela
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Qian Gao

    School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
    For correspondence
    qiangao@fudan.edu.cn
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8489-3672

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China (81661128043,81871625)

  • Qian Gao

National Natural Science Foundation of China (82230078)

  • Qi Jiang

Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project (ZD2021CY001)

  • Qian Gao

Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2042021kf0041)

  • Qi Jiang

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2023, Chen et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 997
    views
  • 153
    downloads
  • 2
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Yiwang Chen
  2. Qi Jiang
  3. Mijiti Peierdun
  4. Howard E Takiff
  5. Qian Gao
(2023)
The mutational signatures of poor treatment outcomes on the drug-susceptible Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome
eLife 12:e84815.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.84815

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.84815

Further reading

    1. Evolutionary Biology
    2. Genetics and Genomics
    Philipp H Schiffer, Paschalis Natsidis ... Maximilian J Telford
    Research Article Updated

    The evolutionary origins of Bilateria remain enigmatic. One of the more enduring proposals highlights similarities between a cnidarian-like planula larva and simple acoel-like flatworms. This idea is based in part on the view of the Xenacoelomorpha as an outgroup to all other bilaterians which are themselves designated the Nephrozoa (protostomes and deuterostomes). Genome data can provide important comparative data and help understand the evolution and biology of enigmatic species better. Here, we assemble and analyze the genome of the simple, marine xenacoelomorph Xenoturbella bocki, a key species for our understanding of early bilaterian evolution. Our highly contiguous genome assembly of X. bocki has a size of ~111 Mbp in 18 chromosome-like scaffolds, with repeat content and intron, exon, and intergenic space comparable to other bilaterian invertebrates. We find X. bocki to have a similar number of genes to other bilaterians and to have retained ancestral metazoan synteny. Key bilaterian signaling pathways are also largely complete and most bilaterian miRNAs are present. Overall, we conclude that X. bocki has a complex genome typical of bilaterians, which does not reflect the apparent simplicity of its body plan that has been so important to proposals that the Xenacoelomorpha are the simple sister group of the rest of the Bilateria.

    1. Evolutionary Biology
    2. Genetics and Genomics
    Akiko Satake, Ryosuke Imai ... Masahiro Kasahara
    Research Article

    The rates of appearance of new mutations play a central role in evolution. However, mutational processes in natural environments and their relationship with growth rates are largely unknown, particular in tropical ecosystems with high biodiversity. Here, we examined the somatic mutation landscapes of two tropical trees, Shorea laevis (slow-growing) and S. leprosula (fast-growing), in central Borneo, Indonesia. Using newly constructed genomes, we identified a greater number of somatic mutations in tropical trees than in temperate trees. In both species, we observed a linear increase in the number of somatic mutations with physical distance between branches. However, we found that the rate of somatic mutation accumulation per meter of growth was 3.7-fold higher in S. laevis than in S. leprosula. This difference in the somatic mutation rate was scaled with the slower growth rate of S. laevis compared to S. leprosula, resulting in a constant somatic mutation rate per year between the two species. We also found that somatic mutations are neutral within an individual, but those mutations transmitted to the next generation are subject to purifying selection. These findings suggest that somatic mutations accumulate with absolute time and older trees have a greater contribution towards generating genetic variation.