bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/534297; this version posted January 29, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. Reevaluating the Fusobacterium Virulence Factor Landscape 1* 1* 1 1 2 Ariana Umana , Blake E. Sanders , Chris C. Yoo , Michael A. Casasanta , Barath Udayasuryan , Scott 2 1,# S. Verbridge , Daniel J. Slade 1 Department of Biochemistry, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA. 2 Laboratory of Integrative Tumor Ecology, and Virginia Tech – Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, Blacksburg, VA, USA *These authors contributed equally # To whom correspondence should be addressed: Dr. Daniel J. Slade, Department of Biochemistry, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061. Telephone: +1 (540) 231-2842. Email:
[email protected] ________________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT Fusobacterium are Gram-negative, anaerobic, opportunistic pathogens involved in multiple diseases, including the oral pathogen Fusobacterium nucleatum being linked to the progression and severity of colorectal cancer. The global identification of virulence factors in Fusobacterium has been greatly hindered by a lack of properly assembled and annotated genomes. Using newly completed genomes from nine strains and seven species of Fusobacterium, we report the identification and correction of virulence factors from the Type 5 secreted autotransporter and FadA protein families, with a focus on the genetically tractable strain F. nucleatum subsp. nucleatum ATCC 23726 and the classic typed strain F. nucleatum subsp.