New Scientist
Image: NOAA Photo Library
What is the difference between the bacteria around a deep-sea vent and those in the human body?
Surprisingly little, according to a comparison of the genomes of bacteria from deep-sea vents with those of human and animal bacterial pathogens. Their evolutionary relationship suggests that animal pathogens came from the deep.
Life on the ocean floor may have provided bacteria with the survival strategies to cope with life as pathogens, says Satoshi Nakagawa of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokosuka, whose team carried out the analysis. Read more on newscientist.com…
