Genetic code of WWI soldier's cholera mapped
Wednesday, April 10, 2019 - 08:20
in Biology & Nature
The oldest publicly available strain of the cholera-causing bacterial species, Vibrio cholerae, has had its genetic code read for the first time. The bacterium was isolated from a British soldier during World War One (WWI) and stored for over 100 years before being revived and sequenced. The results show that this strain is a unique, non-toxigenic strain of V. cholerae that's distantly related to the strains of bacteria causing cholera pandemics today and in the past.