ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Insight into the evolution and origin of leprosy bacilli from the genome sequence of Mycobacterium lepromatosis.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 76 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
76 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 171 citations in OpenAlex.
- Silence on the plate: revisiting the enigma ofFrontiers in microbiology · 2025Pooled it
- Comparative analysis of the leprosy detection rate regarding its clinical spectrum through PCR using theFrontiers in microbiology · 2024Pooled it
- An update on leprosy immunopathogenesis: systematic review.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Pooled it
- Systematic Review of Hansen Disease Attributed to Mycobacterium lepromatosis.Emerging infectious diseases · 2023Pooled it
- Hidden burden of leprosy in incarcerated populations in northeast Brazil: active case detection and serological assessment.European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology · 2026Observational
- Lepromatous leprosy presenting with chronic painless ulcers and inflammatory arthropathy: a case report from a non-endemic setting.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Probable Autochthonous Transmission of Mycobacterium lepromatosis in the Pacific Northwestern United States.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2026Article
- Two pathogens, one disease: Rethinking leprosy diversification through ancient and modern genomes.Clinical and translational medicine · 2026Article
- From leprosy to ground zero: Imagining futures in a world of elimination.Medical anthropology quarterly · 2025Article
- 4,000-year-old Mycobacterium lepromatosis genomes from Chile reveal long establishment of Hansen's disease in the Americas.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Vasculonecrotic Reaction Caused by Mycobacterium Lepromatosis Infection-A Case Report of an HIV/Leprosy-Coinfected Patient.Infectious disease reports · 2025Article
- Ulnar nerve mononeuropathy in a patient with Hansen's disease: Clinical and radiological features.The neuroradiology journal · 2025Article
- Leprosy.Nature reviews. Disease primers · 2024Review
- Exploring the Chemical Space of Mycobacterial Oxidative Phosphorylation Inhibitors Using Molecular Modeling.ChemMedChem · 2024Review
- Genetic diversity of Mycobacterium leprae: Need to move towards genome-wide approaches.The Indian journal of medical research · 2024Review
- Article
- Mycobacterium leprae in Armadillo Tissues from Museum Collections, United States.Emerging infectious diseases · 2023Article
- Pathogenicity and virulence ofVirulence · 2022Review
- Ancient DNA confirmation of lepromatous leprosy in a skeleton with concurrent osteosarcoma, excavated from the leprosarium of St. Mary Magdalen in Winchester, Hants., UK.European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology · 2022Article
- Review
16 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mycobacterium lepromatosis is an uncultured human pathogen associated with diffuse lepromatous leprosy and a reactional state known as Lucio's phenomenon. By using deep sequencing with and without DNA enrichment, we obtained the near-complete genome sequence of M. lepromatosis present in a skin biopsy from a Mexican patient, and compared it with that of Mycobacterium leprae, which has undergone extensive reductive evolution. The genomes display extensive synteny and are similar in size (∼3.27 Mb). Protein-coding genes share 93% nucleotide sequence identity, whereas pseudogenes are only 82% identical. The events that led to pseudogenization of 50% of the genome likely occurred before divergence from their most recent common ancestor (MRCA), and both M. lepromatosis and M. leprae have since accumulated new pseudogenes or acquired specific deletions. Functional comparisons suggest that M. lepromatosis has lost several enzymes required for amino acid synthesis whereas M. leprae has a defective heme pathway. M. lepromatosis has retained all functions required to infect the Schwann cells of the peripheral nervous system and therefore may also be neuropathogenic. A phylogeographic survey of 227 leprosy biopsies by differential PCR revealed that 221 contained M. leprae whereas only six, all from Mexico, harbored M. lepromatosis. Phylogenetic comparisons indicate that M. lepromatosis is closer than M. leprae to the MRCA, and a Bayesian dating analysis suggests that they diverged from their MRCA approximately 13.9 Mya. Thus, despite their ancient separation, the two leprosy bacilli are remarkably conserved and still cause similar pathologic conditions.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.