Featured Publications
Within-host microevolution of Streptococcus pneumoniae is rapid and adaptive during natural colonisation
Chaguza C, Senghore M, Bojang E, Gladstone RA, Lo SW, Tientcheu PE, Bancroft RE, Worwui A, Foster-Nyarko E, Ceesay F, Okoi C, McGee L, Klugman KP, Breiman RF, Barer MR, Adegbola RA, Antonio M, Bentley SD, Kwambana-Adams BA. Within-host microevolution of Streptococcus pneumoniae is rapid and adaptive during natural colonisation. Nature Communications 2020, 11: 3442. PMID: 32651390, PMCID: PMC7351774, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17327-w.Peer-Reviewed Original ResearchConceptsNatural colonisationHost microevolutionNucleotide substitution ratesWhole-genome sequencingGenomic evolutionNeutral evolutionGenetic diversityHomologous recombinationParallel evolutionGenomic changesAdhesion genesSubstitution ratesHuman-adapted pathogenMicroevolutionStrain variantsColonisationImmune evasionStreptococcus pneumoniaeAntibiotic resistanceGenesEvolutionSequencingDiversityNasopharyngeal carriageBacteria
2023
Accelerated SARS-CoV-2 intrahost evolution leading to distinct genotypes during chronic infection
Chaguza C, Hahn A, Petrone M, Zhou S, Ferguson D, Breban M, Pham K, Peña-Hernández M, Castaldi C, Hill V, Initiative Y, Billig K, Earnest R, Fauver J, Kalinch C, Kerantzas N, Koch T, De Kumar B, Landry M, Ott I, Peaper D, Tikhonova I, Vogels C, Schulz W, Swanstrom R, Roberts S, Grubaugh N. Accelerated SARS-CoV-2 intrahost evolution leading to distinct genotypes during chronic infection. Cell Reports Medicine 2023, 4: 100943. PMID: 36791724, PMCID: PMC9906997, DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2023.100943.Peer-Reviewed Original ResearchConceptsChronic infectionEvolutionary ratesGenetic diversityIntrahost evolutionDistinct genotypesHigher viral genome copiesVirus evolutionary ratesSARS-CoV-2 evolutionUntreated chronic infectionAdvantageous mutationsNucleotide substitutionsViral genome copiesDivergent variantsInfection hypothesisVariant emergenceViral populationsInfectious virusInfectionHallmark changesGenome copiesDifferent genotypesDiversityGenotypesTemporal dynamicsEvolution
2022
Novel Multilocus Sequence Typing and Global Sequence Clustering Schemes for Characterizing the Population Diversity of Streptococcus mitis
Kalizang’oma A, Kwambana-Adams B, Chan J, Viswanath A, Gori A, Richard D, Jolley K, Lees J, Goldblatt D, Beleza S, Bentley S, Heyderman R, Chaguza C. Novel Multilocus Sequence Typing and Global Sequence Clustering Schemes for Characterizing the Population Diversity of Streptococcus mitis. Journal Of Clinical Microbiology 2022, 61: e00802-22. PMID: 36515506, PMCID: PMC9879099, DOI: 10.1128/jcm.00802-22.Peer-Reviewed Original ResearchConceptsSequence clustersPathogenic streptococcal speciesMultilocus sequence typing (MLST) schemePopulation diversitySingle-nucleotide polymorphism distancesSequence typesSequence typing schemeUnique sequence typesGenetic diversityPopulation structureBacterial population diversityMolecular typing toolsS. mitisHousekeeping genesSequence fragmentsMLST schemeDiversityOpportunistic pathogenStreptococcus mitisStreptococcal speciesTyping toolSpeciesNew insightsTyping schemeMultilocus sequence typingZooming into the structure of the microbiome
Murray G, Chaguza C. Zooming into the structure of the microbiome. Nature Reviews Microbiology 2022, 21: 5-5. PMID: 36451022, DOI: 10.1038/s41579-022-00834-6.Peer-Reviewed Original Research
2021
RCandy: an R package for visualizing homologous recombinations in bacterial genomes
Chaguza C, Tonkin-Hill G, Lo S, Hadfield J, Croucher N, Harris S, Bentley S. RCandy: an R package for visualizing homologous recombinations in bacterial genomes. Bioinformatics 2021, 38: 1450-1451. PMID: 34864895, PMCID: PMC8826011, DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btab814.Peer-Reviewed Original ResearchConceptsBacterial genomesHomologous recombinationRecombination eventsImportant evolutionary processPlatform-independent R packageGenomic sequence diversityValuable biological insightsSuch recombination eventsR packageGenomic regionsSequence diversityBiological insightsEvolutionary processesGenomeSupplementary dataRecombinationMIT licenseProkaryotesBioinformaticsDiversityBacteriaMacOSXAdaptation