Journal Article

Second-Pandemic Strain of Vibrio cholerae from the Philadelphia Cholera Outbreak of 1849

Shi, Mang, Kuch, Melanie, Bos, Kirsten I, Holmes, Edward C, Enk, Jacob M, Dhody, Anna N, Golding, G. Brian, Forrest, Stephen, Fisman, David N, Waglechner, Nicholas, Devault, Alison M, Poinar, Hendrik N, Earn, David J.D, Tien, Joseph H

2014

Overview

A draft genome of a second-pandemic V. cholerae strain was reconstructed with the use of a museum specimen from a victim of the 1849 cholera outbreak in Philadelphia. This strain was found to be of the O1 classical biotype. Cholera is a diarrheal disease caused by colonization of the intestines by cholera toxin–expressing strains of the waterborne enteric bacterium V. cholerae . An outbreak can arise suddenly, especially in vulnerable populations with compromised sanitation infrastructure, as in the devastating 2010 outbreak in Haiti. 1 In 2012 alone, V. cholerae infected 3 million to 4 million people, killing nearly 100,000. 2 Although all pathogenic V. cholerae strains possess a similar genomic backbone that may have facilitated adaptation to human intestinal mucosa, 3 , 4 the predominant pathogenic strain, serogroup O1, harbors two genetically distinct biotypes: classical and El Tor (for descriptions of these and . . .

• Publisher: Massachusetts Medical Society
• Subject: Bacterial diseases / Bacterial Typing Techniques / Biological and medical sciences / Cholera / Cholera - epidemiology / Cholera - history / Cholera - microbiology / Cholera toxin / DNA, Bacterial - isolation & purification / DNA, Mitochondrial - analysis / Evolution, Molecular / General aspects / Genome, Bacterial / Genomes / Genomic Islands / Genomics / History, 19th Century / Human bacterial diseases / Humans / Infectious diseases / Intestine / Intestines - microbiology / Intestines - pathology / Male / Medical sciences / Next-generation sequencing / Pandemics / Pandemics - history / Philadelphia - epidemiology / Phylogeny / Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Sequence Analysis, DNA / Single-nucleotide polymorphism / Tropical bacterial diseases / Vibrio cholerae / Vibrio cholerae - classification / Vibrio cholerae - genetics / Vibrio cholerae - pathogenicity / Virulence / Virulence Factors - analysis