Population genetic structure of Helicobacter pylori strains from Portuguese-speaking countries

Abstract

The human gastric colonizer Helicobacter pylori is useful to track human migrations given the agreement between the bacterium phylogeographic distribution and human migrations. As Portugal was an African and Brazilian colonizer for over 400 years, we hypothesized that Portuguese isolates were likely genetically closer with those from countries colonized by Portuguese in the past. We aimed to characterize the population structure of several Portuguese-speaking countries, including Portugal, Brazil, Angola, and Cape Verde.Portuguese National Institute of Health, Grant/Award Number: BRJDDI/2012; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Grant/Award Number: SFRH/BPD/95125/2013info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio