Nanjing Liming Bio-products Co., Ltd. (LIMING) has taken a step towards the development of rapid tests for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). In a recent study, LIMING collaborated with researchers from the University of Oxford to compare the population genetics of two closely related pathogenic bacteria, Neisseria meningitidis, and Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The findings of the study may help improve future diagnostic tests for STDs.

According to the study published in PeerJ, N. meningitidis and N. gonorrhoeae have acquired their diversity by recombination with divergent strains. However, N. meningitidis has acquired more of its diversity by recombination than N. gonorrhoeae. The study also found that N. meningitidis is seven-times more diverse than N. gonorrhoeae in their combined core genome. This suggests that N. meningitidis has a higher effective population size than N. gonorrhoeae.

LIMING's rapid tests for infectious diseases, including STDs, have shown similar performance compared to other methods such as PCR or culture, which are time-consuming and costly. The collaboration with the University of Oxford may assist LIMING in the development of more targeted and accurate diagnostic tests for STDs.

In the study, the researchers investigated whether diversity varies across the genome of each species and found that it does. Much of this variation is due to different levels of lateral gene transfer. However, the study also found some evidence that the effective population size varies across the genome. This information could inform the development of targeted diagnostic tests.

The researchers also tested for adaptive evolution in the core genome using a McDonaldKreitman test and by considering the diversity around non-synonymous sites that are fixed for different alleles in the two species. The study found some evidence for adaptive evolution using both approaches.

Although both species share a modest amount of variation, half of which seems to have been acquired by lateral gene transfer and half from their common ancestor, the findings of the study point towards N. meningitidis having a higher effective population size than N. gonorrhoeae. This information could be useful in the development of rapid tests for STDs.

LIMING's collaboration with the University of Oxford is a positive step towards the development of more targeted and accurate diagnostic tests for STDs. The population genetics research carried out by the team could help inform the development of these tests, making them more effective in the diagnosis and treatment of STDs. LIMING's expertise and knowledge in the field of rapid tests for infectious diseases could prove to be invaluable in the fight against the spread of STDs.