Isolation and Genome Sequencing of Subspecies from Antarctic and North Sea Seals

Reports on the commensal organism and opportunistic pathogen have largely considered isolates from humans and companion dogs. Two subspecies are recognized: the coagulase-negative ssp. , typically seen in humans, and the coagulase-positive ssp. , typically seen in dogs. In this study, we report the isolation, genome sequencing and comparative genomics of three ssp. isolates from mouth samples from two species of healthy, free-living Antarctic seals, southern elephant seals () and Antarctic fur seals (), in the South Orkney Islands, Antarctica, and three isolates from post-mortem samples from grey seals () in Scotland, UK. This is the first report of ssp. isolation from Antarctic fur seal and grey seal. The Antarctic fur seal represents the first isolation of ssp. from the family , while the grey seal represents the first isolation from a pinniped in the Northern Hemisphere. We compare seal, dog and human isolates from both subspecies in the first genome-based phylogenetic analysis of the species.