Reconstructing genome evolution in historic samples of the Irish potato famine pathogen
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...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
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Macmillan Publishers Limited
2013
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| Online Access: | http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130718/ncomms3172/full/ncomms3172.html?WT.ec_id=NCOMMS-20130724 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/39239 |
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| author | Martin, M. Cappellini, E. Samaniego, J. Zepeda, M. Campos, P. Seguin-Orlando, A. Wales, N. Orlando, L. Ho, S. Dietrich, F. Mieczkowski, P. Heitman, J. Willerslev, E. Krogh, A. Ristaino, J. Gilbert, Thomas |
| author_facet | Martin, M. Cappellini, E. Samaniego, J. Zepeda, M. Campos, P. Seguin-Orlando, A. Wales, N. Orlando, L. Ho, S. Dietrich, F. Mieczkowski, P. Heitman, J. Willerslev, E. Krogh, A. Ristaino, J. Gilbert, Thomas |
| author_sort | Martin, M. |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | 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. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T08:57:53Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-39239 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T08:57:53Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | Macmillan Publishers Limited |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-392392017-02-28T01:40:42Z Reconstructing genome evolution in historic samples of the Irish potato famine pathogen Martin, M. Cappellini, E. Samaniego, J. Zepeda, M. Campos, P. Seguin-Orlando, A. Wales, N. Orlando, L. Ho, S. Dietrich, F. Mieczkowski, P. Heitman, J. Willerslev, E. Krogh, A. Ristaino, J. Gilbert, Thomas 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. 2013 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/39239 http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130718/ncomms3172/full/ncomms3172.html?WT.ec_id=NCOMMS-20130724 Macmillan Publishers Limited restricted |
| spellingShingle | Martin, M. Cappellini, E. Samaniego, J. Zepeda, M. Campos, P. Seguin-Orlando, A. Wales, N. Orlando, L. Ho, S. Dietrich, F. Mieczkowski, P. Heitman, J. Willerslev, E. Krogh, A. Ristaino, J. Gilbert, Thomas Reconstructing genome evolution in historic samples of the Irish potato famine pathogen |
| title | Reconstructing genome evolution in historic samples of the Irish potato famine pathogen |
| title_full | Reconstructing genome evolution in historic samples of the Irish potato famine pathogen |
| title_fullStr | Reconstructing genome evolution in historic samples of the Irish potato famine pathogen |
| title_full_unstemmed | Reconstructing genome evolution in historic samples of the Irish potato famine pathogen |
| title_short | Reconstructing genome evolution in historic samples of the Irish potato famine pathogen |
| title_sort | reconstructing genome evolution in historic samples of the irish potato famine pathogen |
| url | http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130718/ncomms3172/full/ncomms3172.html?WT.ec_id=NCOMMS-20130724 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/39239 |