In collaboration with Dr. Munirul Alam (International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh), Yan and Tareq's new review outlining the evolution and dissemination of the pandemic lineage of Vibrio cholerae has been published. "Emergence, ecology and dispersal of the pandemic generating Vibrio cholerae lineage" is now available in the open access journal of International Microbiology.
The initial development of pandemic Vibrio cholerae highlights important gene acquisition events required for the Pandemic Generating (PG) lineage to form before being able to infect human hosts. These preliminary gene acquisition stages drive the evolution of pandemic cholera, up to the seventh and current pandemic El Tor strains. Phylogenetic analysis of PG strains indicate a replacement of El Tor predecessors that is now associated with current cholera outbreaks. Pandemic V. cholerae exists in two life stages, as a pathogen in human hosts and in environmental reservoirs, with ecological factors influencing regions that have annual patterns of infection outbreaks, such as water chemistry and host associations in environmental reservoirs. This review provides insight into the evolutionary path of PG V. cholerae, and its dispersal in the environment outside of human hosts.
Phylogenetic analysis of pandemic V. cholerae evolution (from Islam et al., 2017)