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Could a bacterial pathogen that inhabits the human stomach reveal the paths trodden by our ancestors as they migrated out of Africa? In his Perspective, Spratt discusses an analysis of isolates of the gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori from 27 human populations of different ethnicities and from different geographical locations (Falush et al.). DNA sequence differences among the bacterial isolates revealed traces of ancient human migrations and of the intermixing that occurred as migrating populations colonized new areas.
The author is in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London, St. Mary's Hospital, London W2 1PG, UK. E-mail: b.spratt{at}imperial.ac.uk
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In Science Magazine
REPORTS
Daniel Falush, Thierry Wirth, Bodo Linz, Jonathan K. Pritchard, Matthew Stephens, Mark Kidd, Martin J. Blaser, David Y. Graham, Sylvie Vacher, Guillermo I. Perez-Perez, Yoshio Yamaoka, Francis Mégraud, Kristina Otto, Ulrike Reichard, Elena Katzowitsch, Xiaoyan Wang, Mark Achtman, and Sebastian Suerbaum (7 March 2003) Science299 (5612), 1582.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.1080857] |Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »|Supporting Online Material »
THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Distinguishing human ethnic groups by means of sequences from Helicobacter pylori: Lessons from Ladakh.
T. Wirth, X. Wang, B. Linz, R. P. Novick, J. K. Lum, M. Blaser, G. Morelli, D. Falush, and M. Achtman (2004)
PNAS
101, 4746-4751
|Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
