{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,19]],"date-time":"2026-01-19T01:01:18Z","timestamp":1768784478008,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":62,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,26]],"date-time":"2023-05-26T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1685059200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Vet. Sci."],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title><jats:p>Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by a group of acid-fast bacilli known as <jats:italic>Mycobacterium tuberculosis<\/jats:italic> complex (MTC), which has a major impact on humans. Transmission of MTC across the human-animal interface has been demonstrated by several studies. However, the reverse zoonotic transmission from humans to animals (zooanthroponosis) has often been neglected.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>In this study, we used Nanopore MinION and Illumina MiSeq approaches to sequence the whole genome of <jats:italic>M. tuberculosis<\/jats:italic> strains isolated from two deceased Asian elephants (<jats:italic>Elephas maximus<\/jats:italic>) and one human in Chitwan, Nepal. The evolutionary relationships and drug resistance capacity of these strains were assessed using the whole genome data generated by the stand-alone tool Tb-Profiler. Phylogenomic trees were also constructed using a non-synonymous SNP alignment of 2,596 bp, including 94 whole genome sequences representative of the previously described <jats:italic>M. tuberculosis<\/jats:italic> lineages from elephants worldwide (lineages 1 and 4) and from humans in Nepal (lineages 1, 2 and 3).<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results and Discussion<\/jats:title><jats:p>The new genomes achieved an average coverage of 99.6%, with an average depth of 55.67x. These <jats:italic>M. tuberculosis<\/jats:italic> strains belong to lineage 1 (elephant DG), lineage 2 (elephant PK) and lineage 4 (human), and none of them were found to have drug-resistant variants. The elephant-derived isolates were evolutionarily closely related to human-derived isolates previously described in Nepal, both in lineages 1 and 2, providing additional support for zooanthroponosis or bidirectional transmission between humans and elephants. The human-derived isolate clustered together with other published human isolates from Argentina, Russia and the United Kingdom in the lineage 4 clade. This complex multi-pathogen, multi-host system is challenging and highlights the need for a One Health approach to tuberculosis prevention and control at human-animal interface, particularly in regions where human tuberculosis is highly endemic.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fvets.2023.1133823","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,26]],"date-time":"2023-05-26T04:40:01Z","timestamp":1685076001000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":8,"title":["Phylogenomic analysis supports Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission between humans and elephants"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"10","author":[{"given":"Rajesh Man","family":"Rajbhandari","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Rajindra","family":"Napit","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Prajwol","family":"Manandhar","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Roji","family":"Raut","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Anupama","family":"Gurung","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Ajit","family":"Poudel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Nisha","family":"Shrestha","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Amir","family":"Sadaula","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Dibesh","family":"Karmacharya","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Christian","family":"Gort\u00e1zar","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Paulo C\u00e9lio","family":"Alves","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Jos\u00e9","family":"de la Fuente","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Jo\u00e3o","family":"Queir\u00f3s","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,26]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"13","DOI":"10.1016\/S2213-2600(17)30468-X","article-title":"The global cost of tuberculosis","volume":"6","author":"Burki","year":"2018","journal-title":"Lancet Respir Med"},{"key":"ref2","article-title":"Tuberculosis","year":"2021"},{"key":"ref3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"790","DOI":"10.1016\/B978-0-323-40181-4.00134-1","article-title":"Mycobacterium tuberculosis","author":"Chiang","year":"2018","journal-title":"Princ Pract Pediatr Infect Dis"},{"key":"ref4","article-title":"Tackling the drug-resistant TB crisis","year":"2022"},{"key":"ref5","article-title":"Why drug-resistant tuberculosis poses a major risk to global health security","volume-title":"The global 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