31441 - Whole Genome Sequencing Collaboration

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB), caused by Mycobacterium bovis, is a chronic disease of cattle, which remains a critical issue in livestock farming in many parts of the world, including the UK. Badgers were first identified as a potential source of the disease in UK cattle in 1971. Traditional genotyping approaches have been used to infer transmission between badgers and cattle. However, these methods have insufficient resolution to identify different sources of infection at finer spatial scales. This limits the value of these approaches to epidemiological investigations which require unravelling the potential transmission pathways amongst affected cattle herds and the local badger population.

Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) provides a far greater level of differentiation of M. bovis strains than traditional genotyping methods. In a previous collaboration between APHA's NWMC (National Wildlife Management Centre), WGS was used to investigate the nature and extent of inter-species transmission in this system. The results of this extensive body of work revealed some key findings:

- Transmission between badgers and cattle in both directions. - Within-species transmission occurring at higher rates than between species transmission. - Support for transmission occurring more frequently from badgers to cattle than vice versa - Evidence for sustained within species transmission of single lineages over long time periods.

Defra have provided APHA with funding for a research project as an extension to the previous collaboration to build on the existing database of M.bovis sequences in this system by sequencing a further 132 isolates.

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