TY - JOUR
T1 - Reconstructing genome evolution in historic samples of the Irish potato famine pathogen
AU - Martin, Michael David
AU - Cappellini, Enrico
AU - Samaniego Castruita, Jose Alfredo
AU - Zepeda Mendoza, Marie Lisandra
AU - Campos, Paula
AU - Seguin-Orlando, Andaine
AU - Wales, Nathan
AU - Orlando, Ludovic Antoine Alexandre
AU - Ho, Simon Y. W.
AU - Dietrich, Fred S.
AU - Mieczkowski, Piotr A.
AU - Heitman, Joseph
AU - Willerslev, Eske
AU - Krogh, Anders
AU - Ristaino, Jean B.
AU - Gilbert, Tom
PY - 2013/7/18
Y1 - 2013/7/18
N2 - Responsible for the Irish potato famine of 1845-49, the oomycete pathogen Phytophthora infestans caused persistent, devastating outbreaks of potato late blight across Europe in the 19th century. Despite continued interest in the history and spread of the pathogen, the genome of the famine-era strain remains entirely unknown. Here we characterize temporal genomic changes in introduced P. infestans. We shotgun sequence five 19th-century European strains from archival herbarium samples-including the oldest known European specimen, collected in 1845 from the first reported source of introduction. We then compare their genomes to those of extant isolates. We report multiple distinct genotypes in historical Europe and a suite of infection-related genes different from modern strains. At virulence-related loci, several now-ubiquitous genotypes were absent from the historical gene pool. At least one of these genotypes encodes a virulent phenotype in modern strains, which helps explain the 20th century's episodic replacements of European P. infestans lineages.
AB - Responsible for the Irish potato famine of 1845-49, the oomycete pathogen Phytophthora infestans caused persistent, devastating outbreaks of potato late blight across Europe in the 19th century. Despite continued interest in the history and spread of the pathogen, the genome of the famine-era strain remains entirely unknown. Here we characterize temporal genomic changes in introduced P. infestans. We shotgun sequence five 19th-century European strains from archival herbarium samples-including the oldest known European specimen, collected in 1845 from the first reported source of introduction. We then compare their genomes to those of extant isolates. We report multiple distinct genotypes in historical Europe and a suite of infection-related genes different from modern strains. At virulence-related loci, several now-ubiquitous genotypes were absent from the historical gene pool. At least one of these genotypes encodes a virulent phenotype in modern strains, which helps explain the 20th century's episodic replacements of European P. infestans lineages.
U2 - 10.1038/ncomms3172
DO - 10.1038/ncomms3172
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 23863894
VL - 4
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
M1 - 2172
ER -