In The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Katy Town and colleagues report findings of the first large-scale study in which phylogenomic, whole-genome sequencing (WGS) analysis of Neisseria gonorrhoeae isolates was used to identify molecular networks of transmission. This information was linked with epidemiological data, including gender, sexual orientation, and HIV status. The authors sequenced 1277 gonococcal isolates from five geographically dispersed clinics in England (two in London and one each in Bristol, Birmingham, and Liverpool) that had participated in the British Gonococcal Resistance to Antimicrobials Surveillance Programme (GRASP). These isolates comprised 21% of all isolates collected by GRASP and about 9% of all gonorrhoea diagnoses from the five clinics during the study period (2013–16). Although clinical, demographic, and biological information on partners was unavailable, the relative sizes of the molecular transmission clusters identified by this single nucleotide polymorphism-based WGS analysis resembled empirical data of sexual networks constructed from sex-partner data alone. ^,  The study showed that the majority of isolates were linked in dyads (63% of the clusters), triads, or as singletons, with very few large clusters of isolates (the two largest clusters comprised 21 and 11 isolates), consistent with the findings of sex-partner studies. ^, 

中文翻译：

---

淋病奈瑟菌的系统生物学分析：一种用于追踪假定的淋球菌性网络的有前途的工具。

在《柳叶刀传染病》中， Katy Town及其同事报告了第一项大规模研究的结果，该研究对淋病奈瑟氏球菌进行了植物学，全基因组测序（WGS）分析分离株用于鉴定传播的分子网络。该信息与流行病学数据相关，包括性别，性取向和艾滋病毒状况。作者对参与英国不列颠淋球菌抗药性监测计划（GRASP）的五个地理位置分散的英格兰（伦敦两个，布里斯托尔，伯明翰和利物浦各一个）的1277个淋球菌分离株进行了测序。在研究期间（2013-16年），这五种菌株在GRASP收集的所有菌株中占21％，在五家诊所的所有淋病诊断中约占9％。尽管无法获得有关伴侣的临床，人口统计学和生物学信息，^， 这项研究表明，大多数菌株的二人组合有联系（集群的63％），黑社会，或为单身，与分离的极少数大型集群（两个最大的集群由21个和11株），与调查结果一致性伴侣研究 ^，