Molecular basis of the length variation in the N-terminal part of Mycoplasma synoviae hemagglutinin

Mycoplasma synoviae is a major avian pathogen that synthesizes hemagglutinin VlhA, an abundant immunodominant surface lipoprotein. In most M. synoviae strains, the VlhA protein cleaves into the N-terminal part, a lipoprotein MSPB, and a C-terminal part MSPA, which mediates binding to erythrocytes. VlhA is encoded by the vlhA gene of which the 5'-end is present in the genome as a single copy, which does not change its sequence during recombination of the vlhA gene with pseudogenes. In this study, sequence analyses of the 5'-end vlhA sequences of 30 M. synoviae isolates revealed a highly polymorphic region encoding the proline-rich repeats (PRR) in the N-terminal part of MSPB. Pathogenic strain K1968 had an insertion encoding sequence DNPQNPN in PRR, whereas strains F10-2AS, K2581, K3344 and five strains belonging to two related clusters of strains isolated recently from chickens in Slovenia lacked one PRR repeat of 19 amino acids. The predicted length variations correlated well with the lengths of the corresponding MSPB proteins detected in immunoblots with specific antibodies. Comparison of the 5'-end vlhA sequences of 30 M. synoviae strains showed 11 different types of vlhA sequences indicating that the analysis of this vlhA part is useful for strain differentiation. Distinct sequence motifs seem to be characteristic for vlhA genes of individual M. synoviae strains or clusters of strains and can be used as markers for tracing their spreading between poultry farms.