Publications by authors named "Brynildsrud O"

Enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) is considered to be the most dangerous pathotype of E. coli, as it causes severe conditions such as hemorrhagic colitis (HC) and hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).

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Unraveling bacterial gene function drives progress in various areas, such as food production, pharmacology, and ecology. While omics technologies capture high-dimensional phenotypic data, linking them to genomic data is challenging, leaving 40-60% of bacterial genes undescribed. To address this bottleneck, we introduce Scoary2, an ultra-fast microbial genome-wide association studies (mGWAS) software.

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Background: Drug resistance in tuberculosis (TB) poses a major ongoing challenge to public health. The recent inclusion of bedaquiline into TB drug regimens has improved treatment outcomes, but this advance is threatened by the emergence of strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) resistant to bedaquiline. Clinical bedaquiline resistance is most frequently conferred by off-target resistance-associated variants (RAVs) in the mmpR5 gene (Rv0678), the regulator of an efflux pump, which can also confer cross-resistance to clofazimine, another TB drug.

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Vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 has greatly mitigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, concerns have been raised about the degree to which vaccination might drive the emergence and selection of immune escape mutations that will hamper the efficacy of the vaccines. In this study, we investigate whether vaccination impacted the micro-scale adaptive evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in the Oslo region of Norway, during the first nine months of 2021, a period in which the population went from near-zero to almost 90 per cent vaccine coverage in the population over 50 years old.

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(.) poses health and security issues. Here, we report the reference genome assembly of two .

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Objectives: Disease caused by the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis remains a worldwide public health challenge, despite the steadily decreasing incidence in Western countries. The objective of this study was to explore the epidemiology of invasive meningococcal disease in Norway over the last two decades.

Design: All isolates sent to the National Reference Laboratory from patients with invasive meningococcal disease between the years 2000 and 2019 were analyzed using whole genome sequencing (total: 625).

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The gene is an essential housekeeping gene in all the species. It is one of the seven genes used for multilocus sequence typing (MLST) this genus. It encodes the cytosolic component of an ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter complex of unknown function.

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We described the population structure of Bordetella pertussis (B. pertussis) in Norway from 1996 to 2019 and determined if there were evolutionary shifts and whether these correlated with changes in the childhood immunization program. We selected 180 B.

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Background: Pneumococcal disease outbreaks of vaccine preventable serotype 4 sequence type (ST)801 in shipyards have been reported in several countries. We aimed to use genomics to establish any international links between them.

Methods: Sequence data from ST801-related outbreak isolates from Norway (n = 17), Finland (n = 11) and Northern Ireland (n = 2) were combined with invasive pneumococcal disease surveillance from the respective countries, and ST801-related genomes from an international collection (n = 41 of > 40,000), totalling 106 genomes.

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The role of children in the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in schools has been a topic of controversy. In this study among school contacts of SARS-CoV-2 positive children in 43 contact-investigations, we investigated SARS-CoV-2 transmission in Norway, August 2020-May 2021. All participants were tested twice within seven to ten days, using SARS-CoV-2 PCR on home-sampled saliva.

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Tuberculosis, mainly caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), is an ancient human disease that gravely affects millions of people annually. We wanted to explore the genetic diversity and lineage-specific association of Mtb with drug resistance among pulmonary tuberculosis patients. Sputum samples were collected from pulmonary tuberculosis patients at six different healthcare institutions in Tigray, Ethiopia, between July 2018 and August 2019.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The COVID-19 pandemic prompted rapid development of genomic surveillance methods to analyze the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in a population without prior immunity.
  • - Researchers in Norway used genetic and phylogenetic techniques to track how the virus spread, finding that most cases were related to imported strains and involved cycles of introduction and suppression of new variants.
  • - The emergence of the B.1.1.7 variant marked a shift, as it was able to establish itself in the population despite strict border controls, indicating a change in transmission dynamics.
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The evolution and emergence of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) has been studied extensively in some contexts, but the ecological drivers of these two processes remain poorly understood. This study sought to describe the joint evolutionary and epidemiological histories of a novel multidrug-resistant strain recently identified in the capital city of the Republic of Moldova (MDR Ural/4.2), where genomic surveillance of drug-resistant has been limited thus far.

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(the meningococcus) is a major human pathogen with a history of high invasive disease burden, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Our current understanding of the evolution of meningococcal genomes is limited by the rarity of large-scale genomic population studies and lack of in-depth investigation of the genomic events associated with routine pathogen transmission. Here, we fill this knowledge gap by a detailed analysis of 2839 meningococcal genomes obtained through a carriage study of over 50,000 samples collected systematically in Burkina Faso, West Africa, before, during, and after the serogroup A vaccine rollout, 2009-2012.

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Article Synopsis
  • Bacillus cereus sensu lato is a diverse group of Gram-positive bacteria known for their endospore formation and unique microscopic appendages called endospore appendages (Enas), whose identities and functions were previously unclear.
  • Researchers isolated these Enas from a food poisoning strain and identified two main types, S- and L-Ena, with S-Enas showing characteristics of a novel class of pili that provide resistance to extreme conditions.
  • The ena-gene cluster related to these appendages is widely present in various B. cereus species, indicating their potential importance in survival across different environments, including clinical and food-related contexts.
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The Neisseria gonorrhoeae multilocus sequence type (ST) 1901 is among the lineages most commonly associated with treatment failure. Here, we analyze a global collection of ST-1901 genomes to shed light on the emergence and spread of alleles associated with reduced susceptibility to extended-spectrum cephalosporins (ESCs). The genetic diversity of ST-1901 falls into a minor and a major clade, both of which were inferred to have originated in East Asia.

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Objectives: Tuberculosis (TB) is a preventable and treatable infectious disease, but the continuing emergence and spread of multidrug-resistant TB is threatening global TB control efforts. This study aimed to describe the frequency and patterns of drug resistance-conferring mutations of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) isolates detected from pulmonary TB patients in Tigray Region, Ethiopia.

Methods: A cross-sectional study design was employed to collect sputum samples from pulmonary TB patients between July 2018 to August 2019.

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multilocus sequence type (ST)-7827 emerged in a dramatic fashion in Norway in the period 2016-2018. Here, we aim to shed light on the provenance and expansion of this ST. ST-7827 was found to be polyphyletic, but the majority of members belonged to a monophyletic clade we termed PopPUNK cluster 7827 (PC-7827).

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Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is among the top 10 causes of mortality and the first killer among infectious diseases worldwide. One of the factors fuelling the TB epidemic is the global rise of multidrug resistant TB (MDR-TB). The aim of this study was to determine the magnitude and factors associated with MDR-TB in the Tigray Region, Ethiopia.

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Background: The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases divided by population size is used as a coarse measurement for the burden of disease in a population. However, this fraction depends heavily on the sampling intensity and the various test criteria used in different jurisdictions, and many sources indicate that a large fraction of cases tend to go undetected.

Methods: Estimates of the true prevalence of COVID-19 in a population can be made by random sampling and pooling of RT-PCR tests.

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Article Synopsis
  • Organisms' genomic compositions are typically summarized by their AT or GC content, which varies significantly between different prokaryotic taxa, but generally remains stable within a single microbial genome.
  • This variation is influenced by evolutionary relationships and environmental factors, and changes in single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) reflect how these elements shape an organism over time.
  • A new mathematical model developed in this study shows how GC content in microbial genomes evolves, suggesting that slight differences in mutation rates can lead to major impacts on the fate of prokaryotic symbionts, including their risk of extinction.
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Teenagers have a higher risk of invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) than the general population. This cross-sectional study aimed to characterise strains of Neisseria meningitidis circulating among Norwegian teenagers and to assess risk factors for meningococcal carriage. Oropharyngeal swabs were collected from secondary-school students in southeastern Norway in 2018-2019.

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This study presents the nationwide epidemiology of , using whole-genome sequencing of all culture-positive cases, which comprise roughly 40 % of all cases of gonorrhea reported in Norway from 2016 to 2017. Isolates were assigned to sequence types and Bayesian analysis clusters and variation in genes coding for antibiotic resistance was linked to phenotypic resistance data. The study also included isolates taken from the same patients from different anatomical sites at one or more time points.

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