Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 8, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01449-9
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Comision Sectorial de Investigacion Cientifica (CSIC, Uruguay)
- Agencia Nacional de Investigacion e Innovacion (ANII, Uruguay) [FSSA_X_2014_1_105252]
- Australian National Health and Medical Research Council [1091097]
- Victorian Government
- Fondo de Convergencia Estructural del Mercosur (FOCEM) [COF 03/11]
- Wellcome Trust [098051]
- Medical Research Council UK [PF451]
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [26450406] Funding Source: KAKEN
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Campylobacter fetus is a venereal pathogen of cattle and sheep, and an opportunistic human pathogen. It is often assumed that C. fetus infection occurs in humans as a zoonosis through food chain transmission. Here we show that mammalian C. fetus consists of distinct evolutionary lineages, primarily associated with either human or bovine hosts. We use whole-genome phylogenetics on 182 strains from 17 countries to provide evidence that C. fetus may have originated in humans around 10,500 years ago and may have jumped into cattle during the livestock domestication period. We detect C. fetus genomes in 8% of healthy human fecal metagenomes, where the human-associated lineages are the dominant type (78%). Thus, our work suggests that C. fetus is an unappreciated human intestinal pathobiont likely spread by human to human transmission. This genome-based evolutionary framework will facilitate C. fetus epidemiology research and the development of improved molecular diagnostics and prevention schemes for this neglected pathogen.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available