Phylogenetic structure of the global population of <i>Helicobacter Pylori</i>

Abstract

During the co-evolutionary relationships between humans and bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), spanning at least 100,000 years, a high rate of mutation and recombination events led to an extremely high genomic polymorphism of the H. pylori species. Despite this, the large diversity of H. pylori genomes is very well structured, allowing it to be divided into different populations associated with the geographic location of H. pylori strains. This review article summarized developments from numerous studies on the coevolution process and phylogenetic structure of the global population of H. pylori. The relationships between currently known bacterial populations and subpopulations, their geographical distribution, reconstruction of evolutionary pathway for ancestral and recent populations are described in detail. Phylogenetic analysis of the H. pylori population structure permitted to reconstruct both prehistoric and recent human migrations, demographic processes and the complex history of evolution H. pylori population.