NEW YORK – An international team led by investigators in Germany and the US has sequenced a handful of ancient Salmonella genomes, uncovering a cluster of relatively unspecialized bugs in the same lineage that produced the human-specific pathogen S. enterica Paratyphi C.
The researchers, who reported their findings Monday in Nature Ecology and Evolution, also saw a shift toward host-specific S. enterica strains in cultures with more agricultural lifestyles.