Population Genomics of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Ethiopia Contradicts the Virgin Soil Hypothesis for Human Tuberculosis in Sub-Saharan Africa.

ABSTRACT: Colonial medical reports claimed that tuberculosis (TB) was largely unknown in Africa prior to European contact, providing a "virgin soil" for spread of TB in highly susceptible populations previously unexposed to the disease [1, 2]. This is in direct contrast to recent phylogenetic models which support an African origin for TB [3-6]. To address this apparent contradiction, we performed a broad genomic sampling of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Ethiopia. All members of the M. tuberculosis complex (MTBC) arose from clonal expansion of a single common ancestor [7] with a proposed origin in East Africa [3, 4, 8]. Consistent with this proposal, MTBC lineage 7 is almost exclusively found in that region [9-11]. Although a detailed medical history of Ethiopia supports the view that TB was rare unt

SUBMITTER: Comas I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4691238 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature