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Source: http://www.windsorstar.com/health/M...eria+behind+1800s+outbreak/9364645/story.html
McMaster lab cracks genetic code of cholera bacteria behind 1800s outbreak
Helen Branswell, The Canadian Press | Jan 08, 2014 | Last Updated: Jan 08, 2014 - 11:00 UTC
TORONTO - Canadian and American scientists have mapped the genetic blueprint of the cholera bacteria responsible for a 19th-century pandemic of the disease, cracking open a veritable medical time capsule to do so.
The researchers, led by the Ancient DNA Centre at McMaster University in Hamilton, mined a postage stamp-sized piece of tissue taken from the preserved intestine of a Philadelphia man who died of cholera in 1849.
The work confirmed the suspicion that the outbreak ? the second of seven cholera pandemics in history ? was caused by what is known as the classical strain of the bacterium Vibrio cholera. Currently most cholera disease is triggered by another strain ? El Tor ? that displaced classical as the most common cause of illness in the 1960s.
An impressive feat in its own right, this type of work should help scientists chart how pathogens like cholera emerge and change...
McMaster lab cracks genetic code of cholera bacteria behind 1800s outbreak
Helen Branswell, The Canadian Press | Jan 08, 2014 | Last Updated: Jan 08, 2014 - 11:00 UTC
TORONTO - Canadian and American scientists have mapped the genetic blueprint of the cholera bacteria responsible for a 19th-century pandemic of the disease, cracking open a veritable medical time capsule to do so.
The researchers, led by the Ancient DNA Centre at McMaster University in Hamilton, mined a postage stamp-sized piece of tissue taken from the preserved intestine of a Philadelphia man who died of cholera in 1849.
The work confirmed the suspicion that the outbreak ? the second of seven cholera pandemics in history ? was caused by what is known as the classical strain of the bacterium Vibrio cholera. Currently most cholera disease is triggered by another strain ? El Tor ? that displaced classical as the most common cause of illness in the 1960s.
An impressive feat in its own right, this type of work should help scientists chart how pathogens like cholera emerge and change...
