Origin, spread and demography of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex

• Published in: PLoS pathogens Vol. 4; no. 9; p. e1000160
• Main Authors: Wirth, Thierry, Hildebrand, Falk, Allix-Béguec, Caroline, Wölbeling, Florian, Kubica, Tanja, Kremer, Kristin, van Soolingen, Dick, Rüsch-Gerdes, Sabine, Locht, Camille, Brisse, Sylvain, Meyer, Axel, Supply, Philip, Niemann, Stefan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 01.09.2008; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Animals; Bayes Theorem; Biological Evolution; Causes of; Demographic aspects; Demography; Development and progression; Evolution; Evolutionary Biology/Microbial Evolution and Genomics; Genetic Variation; Genetics and Genomics/Microbial Evolution and Genomics; Host-bacteria relationships; Humans; Infectious Diseases/Bacterial Infections; Microsatellite Repeats; Mutation; Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Mycobacterium tuberculosis - genetics; Phylogeny; Physiological aspects; Species Specificity; Studies; Tuberculosis; Zoonoses; France
• ISSN: 1553-7374; 1553-7366; 1553-7374
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1000160

The evolutionary timing and spread of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC), one of the most successful groups of bacterial pathogens, remains largely unknown. Here, using mycobacterial tandem repeat sequences as genetic markers, we show that the MTBC consists of two independent clades, one composed exclusively of M. tuberculosis lineages from humans and the other composed of both animal and human isolates. The latter also likely derived from a human pathogenic lineage, supporting the hypothesis of an original human host. Using Bayesian statistics and experimental data on the variability of the mycobacterial markers in infected patients, we estimated the age of the MTBC at 40,000 years, coinciding with the expansion of "modern" human populations out of Africa. Furthermore, coalescence analysis revealed a strong and recent demographic expansion in almost all M. tuberculosis lineages, which coincides with the human population explosion over the last two centuries. These findings thus unveil the dynamic dimension of the association between human host and pathogen populations.