Journal
FUTURE MICROBIOLOGY
Volume 6, Issue 1, Pages 57-71Publisher
FUTURE MEDICINE LTD
DOI: 10.2217/FMB.10.153
Keywords
drug-resistance; leprosy; molecular epidemiology; Mycobacterium leprae; phylogeography; pseudogene
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Funding
- Foundation Raoul Follereau
- National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases [R01-AI47197-01A1]
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES [R01AI047197] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
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Leprosy, which has afflicted human populations for millenia, results from infection with Mycobacterium leprae, an unculturable pathogen with an exceptionally long generation time. Considerable insight into the biology and drug resistance of the leprosy bacillus has been obtained from genomics. M. leprae has undergone reductive evolution and pseudogenes now occupy half of its genome. Comparative genomics of four different strains revealed remarkable conservation of the genome (99.995% identity) yet uncovered 215 polymorphic sites, mainly single nucleotide polymorphisms, and a handful of new pseudogenes. Mapping these polymorphisms in a large panel of strains defined 16 single nucleotide polymorphism-subtypes that showed strong geographical associations and helped retrace the evolution of M. leprae.
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