Quantifying bacterial evolution in the wild: A birthday problem for Campylobacter lineages.

ABSTRACT: Measuring molecular evolution in bacteria typically requires estimation of the rate at which nucleotide changes accumulate in strains sampled at different times that share a common ancestor. This approach has been useful for dating ecological and evolutionary events that coincide with the emergence of important lineages, such as outbreak strains and obligate human pathogens. However, in multi-host (niche) transmission scenarios, where the pathogen is essentially an opportunistic environmental organism, sampling is often sporadic and rarely reflects the overall population, particularly when concentrated on clinical isolates. This means that approaches that assume recent common ancestry are not applicable. Here we present a new approach to estimate the molecular clock rate in Campylobacter t

SUBMITTER: Calland JK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8500405 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature