Who ate whom? Adaptive Helicobacter genomic changes that accompanied a host jump from early humans to large felines.

ABSTRACT: Helicobacter pylori infection of humans is so old that its population genetic structure reflects that of ancient human migrations. A closely related species, Helicobacter acinonychis, is specific for large felines, including cheetahs, lions, and tigers, whereas hosts more closely related to humans harbor more distantly related Helicobacter species. This observation suggests a jump between host species. But who ate whom and when did it happen? In order to resolve this question, we determined the genomic sequence of H. acinonychis strain Sheeba and compared it to genomes from H. pylori. The conserved core genes between the genomes are so similar that the host jump probably occurred within the last 200,000 (range 50,000-400,000) years. However, the Sheeba genome also possesses unique features

SUBMITTER: Eppinger M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1523251 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature