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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Jul 16.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2010 Oct 12;7(11):629–641. doi: 10.1038/nrgastro.2010.154

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Distribution of Helicobater pylori genotypes before Columbus found the New World and human migration to America and Oceania began. There are seven modern H. pylori population types—hpEurope, hpEastAsia, hpAfrica1, hpAfrica2, hpAsia2, hpNEAfrica and hpSahul.7–9 hpEurope includes almost all H. pylori strains isolated from ethnic Europeans, including people from countries colonized by Europeans. Most H. pylori isolates from East Asia belong to hpEastAsia, which includes hspMaori (Polynesians, Melanesians, and native Taiwanese), hspAmerind (American Indians) and hspEAsia (East Asia) subpopulations. hpAsia2 strains are isolated in South, Southeast and Central Asia; hpAfrica1 in West Africa, South Africa and African Americans. hpNEAfrica is predominantly made up of isolates from Northeast Africa. hpAfrica2 is very distinct from any other type and has currently only been isolated in South Africa. hpSahul is a novel group specific to H. pylori strains isolated from Australian Aborigines and Highlanders of New Guinea. H. pylori is predicted to have spread from East Africa over the same time period as anatomically modern humans (~58,000 years ago), and has remained intimately associated with their human hosts ever since. Estimated global patterns of H. pylori migration are indicated by arrows and the numbers show the estimated time since they migrated (years ago). The broken arrow indicates an unconfirmed migration pattern. Detailed analyses of migration patterns have been explained previously.8,9