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Population Genetic Analyses of Helicobacter pylori Isolates from Gambian Adults and Children

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Julian Thomas

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).


Abstract

The gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori is one of the most genetically diverse of bacterial species. Much of its diversity stems from frequent mutation and recombination, preferential transmission within families and local communities, and selection during persistent gastric mucosal infection. MLST of seven housekeeping genes had identified multiple distinct H. pylori populations, including three from Africa: hpNEAfrica, hpAfrica1 and hpAfrica2, which consists of three subpopulations (hspWAfrica, hspCAfrica and hspSAfrica). Most detailed H. pylori population analyses have used strains from non-African countries, despite Africa's high importance in the emergence and evolution of humans and their pathogens. Our concatenated sequences from seven H. pylori housekeeping genes from 44 Gambian patients (MLST) identified 42 distinct sequence types (or haplotypes), and no clustering with age or disease. STRUCTURE analysis of the sequence data indicated that Gambian H. pylori strains belong to the hspWAfrica subpopulation of hpAfrica1, in accord with Gambia's West African location. Despite Gambia's history of invasion and colonisation by Europeans and North Africans during the last millennium, no traces of Ancestral Europe1 (AE1) population carried by those people were found. Instead, admixture of 17% from Ancestral Europe2 (AE2) was detected in Gambian strains; this population predominates in Nilo-Saharan speakers of North-East Africa, and might have been derived from admixture of hpNEAfrica strains these people carried when they migrated across the Sahara during the Holocene humid period 6,000-9,000 years ago. Alternatively, shared AE2 ancestry might have resulted from shared ancestral polymorphisms already present in the common ancestor of sister populations hpAfrica1 and hpNEAfrica.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Secka O, Moodley Y, Antonio M, Berg DE, Tapgun M, Walton R, Worwui A, Thomas V, Corrah T, Thomas JE, Adegbola RA

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: PLoS ONE

Year: 2014

Volume: 9

Issue: 10

Online publication date: 13/10/2014

Acceptance date: 08/09/2014

Date deposited: 02/12/2014

ISSN (electronic): 1932-6203

Publisher: Public Library of Science

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0109466

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0109466


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Funding

Funder referenceFunder name
MRC unit, The Gambia
R21-AI078237US National Institutes of Health (NIH)
R21-AI088337US National Institutes of Health (NIH)
RO3-AI061308US National Institutes of Health (NIH)

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