Genomes of Helicobacter pylori from native Peruvians suggest admixture of ancestral and modern lineages and reveal a western type cag-pathogenicity island

Background Helicobacter pylori is presumed to be co-evolved with its human host and is a highly diverse gastric pathogen at genetic levels. Ancient origins of H. pylori in the New World are still debatable. It is not clear how different waves of human migrations in South America contributed to the evolution of strain diversity of H. pylori. The objective of our 'phylogeographic' study was to gain fresh insights into these issues through mapping genetic origins of H. pylori of native Peruvians (of Amerindian ancestry) and their genomic comparison with isolates from Spain, and Japan.