Yin Y Yao H Doijad S Kong S Shen Y Cai X Tan W Wang Y Feng Y Ling Z Wang G Hu Y Lian K Sun X Liu Y Wang C Jiao K Liu G Song R Chen X Pan Z Loessner MJ Chakraborty T Jiao X 2019 The foodborne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) is a highly heterogeneous species and currently comprises of 4 evolutionarily distinct lineages. Here, we characterize isolates from severe ovine listeriosis outbreaks that represent a hybrid sub-lineage of the major lineage II (HSL-II) and serotype 4h. HSL-II isolates are highly virulent and exhibit higher organ colonization capacities than well-characterized hypervirulent strains of Lm in an orogastric mouse infection model. The isolates harbour both the Lm Pathogenicity Island (LIPI)-1 and a truncated LIPI-2 locus, encoding sphingomyelinase (SmcL), a virulence factor required for invasion and bacterial translocation from the gut, and other non-contiguous chromosomal segments from another pathogenic species, L. ivanovii. HSL-II isolates exhibit a unique wall teichoic acid (WTA) structure essential for resistance to antimicrobial peptides, bacterial invasion and virulence. The discovery of isolates harbouring pan-species virulence genes of the genus Listeria warrants global efforts to identify further hypervirulent lineages of Lm. application/pdf https://sonar.ch/global/documents/221394 eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1038/s41467-019-12072-1 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/pmid/31570766 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Nature communications. - 2019 Animals Caco-2 Cells Genome, Bacterial Genomics Goats Humans Listeria monocytogenes Listeriosis Mice Phylogeny Swine Virulence A hybrid sub-lineage of Listeria monocytogenes comprising hypervirulent isolates. http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501