Stable association between strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and their human host populations.Mycobacterium tuberculosis Mycobacterium tuberculosis n. Tubercic bacillus. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a global pathogen Pathogen Any agent capable of causing disease. The term pathogen is usually restricted to living agents, which include viruses, rickettsia, bacteria, fungi, yeasts, protozoa, helminths, and certain insect larval stages. that kills two million persons each year. Hirsh et al. investigated whether it is really one and the same M. tuberculosis M. tuberculosis, n the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis, generally a respiratory infection in man; nonrespiratory tuberculosis is considered an indicator disease for AIDS. See also tuberculosis. that infects people born in different parts of the world. The evolutionary relationships among 100 M. tuberculosis isolates from San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden were deduced from the unique genomic sequences deleted fromeach isolate. For the same 100 isolates, a long-term epidemiologic dataset showed where each isolate's host had been born, and whether he or she had contracted the infection before or after coming to San Francisco. Together, the evolutionary and epidemiologic data showed that a host's place of birth was highly predictive of the genetic identity of the M. tuberculosis he or she carried. This pattern held true even among hosts who had been infected in·fect tr.v. in·fect·ed, in·fect·ing, in·fects 1. To contaminate with a pathogenic microorganism or agent. 2. To communicate a pathogen or disease to. 3. To invade and produce infection in. after arriving in San Francisco. An estimate of the time separating the genetically divergent groups of M. tuberculosis that are carried by persons born in different locations suggested that the associations between human populations and their genetically distinctive strains of M. tuberculosis have persisted for centuries. Hirsh AE, Tsolaki AG, DeRiemer K, Feldman MW, Small PM. Stable association between strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and their human host populations. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2004 Apt 6;101:4871-6. Epub 2004 Mar 23. |
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