Finding the missing link in the life cycle of pandemic generating Vibrio cholerae O1

霍乱弧菌是一种水生微生物，可导致经常致命的腹泻疾病霍乱。霍乱每年影响数十万人。只有这种物种的特定血统，通常被称为O1/O139，因为它们表面显示的抗原而被称为O1/O139，才能引起这种疾病。尽管对这种细菌进行了数十年的研究，我们仍在努力解释每年一次的疫情是如何在发现这种细菌的地区开始的。最近在温哥华岛海岸食用鲱鱼蛋导致的霍乱暴发也引起了人们的担忧，即气候变化是否正在扩大这种疾病的范围，通常仅限于较温暖的气候。 我们最近发现，我们理解霍乱爆发的开始是因为我们研究了整个霍乱弧菌物种，而不是单个谱系。事实上，这个物种的每个谱系似乎都有自己的生态特征，比如生活在不同的盐浓度、温度下，或者与不同类型的颗粒或宿主有关。在这里，我们的目标是定义特定有利于致病性霍乱弧菌O1/O139谱系的环境因素。这将使我们能够更好地了解它在水环境中的传播和繁殖，以便我们能够更准确地预测疫情爆发，并确定全球变暖对这种疾病范围的影响。

The bacterium Vibrio cholerae is an aquatic microbe responsible for the often-lethal diarrheal disease cholera, which affects hundreds of thousands of people every year. Only a specific lineage of this species, often known as O1/O139 for the antigens displayed on their surface, can cause the disease. Despite decades of studying this bacterium, we are still struggling to explain how yearly outbreaks start in areas where it is found. A recent cholera outbreak resulting from the consumption of herring eggs on the coast of Vancouver island also raises concerns as to whether climate change is expanding the range of this disease, normally restricted to warmer climates. We have recently found that our difficulty in understanding the start of outbreaks was because we studied the entire Vibrio cholerae species, not individual lineages. Indeed, each lineage of this species seems to have its own ecological characteristics, such as living at various salt concentrations, temperatures, or associated with different types of particles or hosts. Here we aim to define the environmental factors that specifically favor the pathogenic Vibrio cholerae O1/O139 lineage. This would allow us to better understand its dispersal and blooming in aquatic environments, so that we can predict outbreaks more accurately and identify the implications of global warming for the range of this disease.