title: The rise and fall of the Phytophthora infestans lineage that triggered the Irish potato famine.
abstract: Phytophthora infestans, the cause of potato late blight, is infamous for having triggered the Irish Great Famine in the 1840s. Until the late 1970s, P. infestans diversity outside of its Mexican center of origin was low, and one scenario held that a single strain, US-1, had dominated the global population for 150 years; this was later challenged based on DNA analysis of historical herbarium specimens. We have compared the genomes of 11 herbarium and 15 modern strains. We conclude that the 19th century epidemic was caused by a unique genotype, HERB-1, that persisted for over 50 years. HERB-1 is distinct from all examined modern strains, but it is a close relative of US-1, which replaced it outside of Mexico in the 20th century. We propose that HERB-1 and US-1 emerged from a metapopulation that was established in the early 1800s outside of the species' center of diversity. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00731.001.
authors.affiliation: The Sainsbury Laboratory , Norwich , United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Kentaro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yoshida
authors.forename: Verena J
authors.initials: VJ
authors.lastname: Schuenemann
authors.forename: Liliana M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Cano
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pais
authors.forename: Bagdevi
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mishra
authors.forename: Rahul
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.forename: Chirsta
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lanz
authors.forename: Frank N
authors.initials: FN
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Sophien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kamoun
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Krause
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Thines
authors.forename: Detlef
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Weigel
authors.forename: Hernán A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Burbano
mesh_terms: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D005800:Genes, Fungal; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D007494:Ireland; D055750:Phytophthora infestans / Q000235:genetics / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D011198:Solanum tuberosum / Q000382:microbiology*; D013217:Starvation
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial
keywords: Herbarium; Other; Phytophthora infestans; Solanum tuberosum; ancient DNA