Musser J M
Department of Pathology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.
Emerg Infect Dis. 1996 Jan-Mar;2(1):1-17. doi: 10.3201/eid0201.960101.
Research in bacterial population genetics has increased in the last 10 years. Population genetic theory and tools and related strategies have been used to investigate bacterial pathogens that have contributed to recent episodes of temporal variation in disease frequency and severity. A common theme demonstrated by these analyses is that distinct bacterial clones are responsible for disease outbreaks and increases in infection frequency. Many of these clones are characterized by unique combinations of virulence genes or alleles of virulence genes. Because substantial interclonal variance exists in relative virulence, molecular population genetic studies have led to the concept that the unit of bacterial pathogenicity is the clone or cell line. Continued new insights into host parasite interactions at the molecular level will be achieved by combining clonal analysis of bacterial pathogens with large-scale comparative sequencing of virulence genes.
在过去十年中，细菌群体遗传学的研究有所增加。群体遗传学理论、工具及相关策略已被用于研究那些导致近期疾病频率和严重程度出现时间变化的细菌病原体。这些分析所展现的一个共同主题是，不同的细菌克隆是疾病暴发和感染频率增加的原因。其中许多克隆的特征是毒力基因或毒力基因等位基因的独特组合。由于相对毒力存在大量克隆间差异，分子群体遗传学研究催生了这样一个概念，即细菌致病性的单位是克隆或细胞系。通过将细菌病原体的克隆分析与毒力基因的大规模比较测序相结合，将在分子水平上不断获得关于宿主-寄生虫相互作用的新见解。
