[W5] Workshop 5
Selected from Oral Session 2: Genetics, taxonomy and Epidemiology

[W5-4/ODP-076] BeMAp for practical phylogenic analysis and mapping of antimicrobial resistance plasmids

Yusuke Tsuda¹, Masahiro Suzuki², Jun-ichi Wachino^1,3, Kouji Kimura¹, Yoshichika Arakawa^1,3 (¹Dept. Bacteriol., Grad. Sch. Med., Nagoya Univ., ²Dept. Microbiol., Sch. Med., Fujita Health Univ., ³Dept. Med. Tech., Shubun Univ.)

Plasmids carry multiple antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes and confer a variety of genotypes and AMR phenotypes by transferring across bacteria. So far, effective tools to analyze AMR plasmids phylogenetically have not been established, and tools to visualize the similarity of multiple plasmids at a glance have yet been developed. To analyze the similarity of multiple plasmids through mapping AMR genes on plasmids, we have created a platform, BeMAp, Bird’s-eye MApping of plasmids. The outlining of BeMAp is following. Multiple plasmids or fragments of plasmids carrying AMR genes and an objective gene are queried by blastn to identify AMR genes in them. In a spreadsheet, each of coding sequences (CDS) in the linearized plasmids or fragments is placed in one cell, and each plasmid is mapped in one column side-by-side for the cells containing the objective gene to be centered. Cells containing AMR genes and the objective gene are colored. Algorithm in BeMAp aligns the plasmids according to types, positions, alignments and organizations of AMR genes, which shows similarity of the plasmids effectively. Additionally, coloring the columns according to properties of plasmids, such as Inc groups, isolated countries and isolated organisms, enables us to recognize similarities of AMR genes in plasmids as well as these properties. BeMAp is now freely available.