Antwerpen M H, Sahl J W, Birdsell D, Pearson T, Pearce M J, Redmond C, Meyer H, Keim P S
Bundeswehr Institute of Microbiology, Munich, Germany
The Pathogen and Microbiome Institute, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA.
mBio. 2017 Apr 25;8(2):e00440-17. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00440-17.
In 1998, it was claimed that an 80-year-old glass tube intentionally filled with and embedded in a sugar lump as a WWI biological weapon still contained viable spores. Today, genome sequencing of three colonies isolated in 1998 and subjected to phylogenetic analysis surprisingly identified a well-known reference strain isolated in the United States in 1981, pointing to accidental laboratory contamination. Next-generation sequencing and subsequent phylogenetic analyses are useful and reliable tools for the classification of recent and historical samples. The reliability of sequences obtained and bioinformatic algorithms has increased in recent years, and research has uncovered the identity of a presumed bioweapon agent as a contaminant.
1998年，据称一根80年前的玻璃管曾被故意装满（此处原文缺失具体内容）并嵌入一块糖块中作为第一次世界大战的生物武器，如今该玻璃管中仍含有活孢子。如今，对1998年分离出的三个菌落进行基因组测序并进行系统发育分析，结果令人惊讶地发现其中一个是1981年在美国分离出的一种知名参考菌株，这表明是实验室意外污染所致。新一代测序技术及后续的系统发育分析是对近期和历史样本进行分类的有用且可靠的工具。近年来，所获得序列及生物信息学算法的可靠性有所提高，研究也揭示了一种疑似生物战剂实际上是污染物的身份。
