Table 1_Genetic characterization of Listeria monocytogenes strains from the Seeliger’s historical “special Listeria culture collection” (1918–1986).xlsx

Introduction<p>Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) is a widespread foodborne pathogen that continues to pose a major challenge to public health and the food industry.</p>Methods<p>To explore the genomic diversity of historical isolates, we used whole genome sequencing (WGS) both short- and long-read technologies to obtain high quality genomes of 64 historical L. monocytogenes isolates collected between 1918 and 1986.

These isolates originated from environmental, animal, and human sources obtained from the collection from Professor Seeliger.</p>Results<p>The isolates displayed a substantial genetic diversity, representing 15 clonal complexes (CCs), 40 sequence types (STs) and 59 core genome multilocus sequence types (cgMLST). The most frequently identified STs were ST2 (n = 8), ST7 (n = 6) and ST9 (n = 4). All isolates harbored known virulence genes, while 35 isolates contained mobile genetic elements (MGEs), ranging from 1 to 11 per isolate.