%0 Journal Article
%9 ACL : Articles dans des revues avec comité de lecture répertoriées par l'AERES
%A Weir, W.
%A Capewell, P.
%A Foth, B.
%A Clucas, C.
%A Pountain, A.
%A Steketee, P.
%A Veitch, N.
%A Koffi, M.
%A De Meeûs, Thierry
%A Kabore, J.
%A Camara, M.
%A Cooper, A.
%A Tait, A.
%A Jamonneau, Vincent
%A Bucheton, Bruno
%A Berriman, M.
%A MacLeod, A.
%T Population genomics reveals the origin and asexual evolution of human infective trypanosomes
%D 2016
%L fdi:010066155
%G ENG
%J Elife
%@ 2050-084X
%K AFRIQUE DE L'OUEST ; CAMEROUN ; GUINEE ; COTE D'IVOIRE
%M ISI:000369059800001
%P e11473 [14 ]
%R 10.7554/eLife.11473
%U https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010066155
%> https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers16-02/010066155.pdf
%V 5
%W Horizon (IRD)
%X Evolutionary theory predicts that the lack of recombination and chromosomal re assortment in strictly asexual organisms results in homologous chromosomes irreversibly accumulating mutations and thus evolving independently of each other, a phenomenon termed the Meselson effect. We apply a population genomics approach to examine this effect in an important human pathogen, Trypanosoma brucei gambiense. We determine that T.b. gambiense is evolving strictly asexually and is derived from a single progenitor, which emerged within the last 10,000 years. We demonstrate the Meselson effect for the first time at the genome-wide level in any organism and show large regions of loss of heterozygosity, which we hypothesise to be a short-term compensatory mechanism for counteracting deleterious mutations. Our study sheds new light on the genomic and evolutionary consequences of strict asexuality, which this pathogen uses as it exploits a new biological niche, the human population.
%$ 052 ; 020