摘要：SummaryA virulence bacterium,Helicobacter pylori, evolved parallel to its host human, therefore, can work as a marker for tracing the human migration. We foundH.pyloristrains indigenous in the southernmost islands of Japanese Archipelago, Okinawa, and defined them as hspOkinawa and hpRyukyu. Genome data of the strains revealed that hspOkinawa diverged from other East Asian strains about 20,000 years ago, and that hpRyukyu diverged about 45,000 years ago. The closest strains of hpRyukyu were found from Afghanistan, Punjab, and Nepal, which suggest this strain originated in the central Asia and traveled across the Eurasian continent during Paleolithic era. The divergence date of hpRyukyu corresponds with human fossil records in Okinawa. Although it is controversial from human DNA analyses whether descendants of the Paleolithic migrants remain in the modern Japanese population, this study reveals that the bacterium of Paleolithic origin remains in the stomachs of current Japanese.Graphical abstractDisplay OmittedHighlights•H.pyloristrains in Okinawa, Japan, have a different origin from the main island•One of the Okinawa-specific strains originate in Western Asia in the Paleolithic era•Our results suggest ancient human migration from west to the east end of EurasiaGastroenterology; Bacteriology; Medical Microbiology; Microbial genetics; Phylogeny; Evolutionary history
