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The 5300-year-old Helicobacter pylori genome of the Iceman
Maixner, F., B. Krause-Kyora, D. Turaev, A. Herbig, M. R. Hoopmann, J. L. Hallows, U. Kusebauch, E. E. Vigl, P. Malfertheiner, F. Megraud, N. O'Sullivan, G. Cipollini, V. Coia, M. Samadelli, L. Engstrand, B. Linz, R. L. Moritz, R. Grimm, J. Krause, A. Nebel, Y. Moodley, T. Rattei and A. Zink :
in: Science
, 351
, 2016
, 6269
, pp. 162-165
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Abstract: The stomach bacterium Helicobacter pylori is one of the most prevalent human pathogens. It has dispersed globally with its human host, resulting in a distinct phylogeographic pattern that can be used to reconstruct both recent and ancient human migrations. The extant European population of H. pylori is known to be a hybrid between Asian and African bacteria, but there exist different hypotheses about when and where the hybridization took place, reflecting the complex demographic history of Europeans. Here, we present a 5300-year-old H. pylori genome from a European Copper Age glacier mummy. The "Iceman" H. pylori is a nearly pure representative of the bacterial population of Asian origin that existed in Europe before hybridization, suggesting that the African population arrived in Europe within the past few thousand years.
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