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On the Age of Leprosy

Leprosy is a chronic infection of the skin and nerves caused by Mycobacterium leprae and the newly discovered Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Human leprosy has been documented for millennia in ancient cultures. Recent genomic studies of worldwide M. leprae strains have further traced it along global hum...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Han, Xiang Y., Silva, Francisco J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3923669/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24551248
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0002544
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author Han, Xiang Y.
Silva, Francisco J.
author_facet Han, Xiang Y.
Silva, Francisco J.
author_sort Han, Xiang Y.
collection PubMed
description Leprosy is a chronic infection of the skin and nerves caused by Mycobacterium leprae and the newly discovered Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Human leprosy has been documented for millennia in ancient cultures. Recent genomic studies of worldwide M. leprae strains have further traced it along global human dispersals during the past ∼100,000 years. Because leprosy bacilli are strictly intracellular, we wonder how long humans have been affected by this disease-causing parasite. Based on recently published data on M. leprae genomes, M. lepromatosis discovery, leprosy bacilli evolution, and human evolution, it is most likely that the leprosy bacilli started parasitic evolution in humans or early hominids millions of years ago. This makes leprosy the oldest human-specific infection. The unique adaptive evolution has likely molded the indolent growth and evasion from human immune defense that may explain leprosy pathogenesis. Accordingly, leprosy can be viewed as a natural consequence of a long parasitism. The burden of leprosy may have affected minor selection on human genetic polymorphisms.
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spelling pubmed-39236692014-02-18 On the Age of Leprosy Han, Xiang Y. Silva, Francisco J. PLoS Negl Trop Dis Review Leprosy is a chronic infection of the skin and nerves caused by Mycobacterium leprae and the newly discovered Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Human leprosy has been documented for millennia in ancient cultures. Recent genomic studies of worldwide M. leprae strains have further traced it along global human dispersals during the past ∼100,000 years. Because leprosy bacilli are strictly intracellular, we wonder how long humans have been affected by this disease-causing parasite. Based on recently published data on M. leprae genomes, M. lepromatosis discovery, leprosy bacilli evolution, and human evolution, it is most likely that the leprosy bacilli started parasitic evolution in humans or early hominids millions of years ago. This makes leprosy the oldest human-specific infection. The unique adaptive evolution has likely molded the indolent growth and evasion from human immune defense that may explain leprosy pathogenesis. Accordingly, leprosy can be viewed as a natural consequence of a long parasitism. The burden of leprosy may have affected minor selection on human genetic polymorphisms. Public Library of Science 2014-02-13 /pmc/articles/PMC3923669/ /pubmed/24551248 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0002544 Text en © 2014 Han, Silva http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Review
Han, Xiang Y.
Silva, Francisco J.
On the Age of Leprosy
title On the Age of Leprosy
title_full On the Age of Leprosy
title_fullStr On the Age of Leprosy
title_full_unstemmed On the Age of Leprosy
title_short On the Age of Leprosy
title_sort on the age of leprosy
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3923669/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24551248
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0002544
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