{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T01:17:02Z","timestamp":1760145422351,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":33,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"7","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,16]],"date-time":"2024-07-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1721088000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"funds from the Medical Biological Defense Research Program of the Bundeswehr Joint Medical Service"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Pathogens"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Bacillus anthracis is a rare but highly dangerous zoonotic bacterial pathogen. At the beginning of this century, a new manifestation of the disease, injectional anthrax, emerged as a result of recreational heroin consumption involving contaminated drugs. The organisms associated with this 13-year-lasting outbreak event in European drug consumers were all grouped into the canonical single-nucleotide polymorphism (canSNP) clade A-branch (A.Br.) 161 of B. anthracis. Related clade A.Br.161 strains of B. anthracis not associated with heroin consumption have also been identified from different countries, mostly in Asia. Because of inadvertent spread by anthropogenic activities, other strains of this A.Br.161 lineage were, however, isolated from several countries. Thus, without additional isolates from this clade, its origin of evolution or its autochthonous region remains obscure. Here, we genomically characterized six new A.Br.161 group isolates, some of which were from Iran, with others likely historically introduced into Germany. All the chromosomes of these isolates could be grouped into a distinct sub-clade within the A.Br.161 clade. This sub-clade is separated from the main A.Br.161 lineage by a single SNP. We have developed this SNP into a PCR assay facilitating the future attribution of strains to this group.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/pathogens13070593","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,17]],"date-time":"2024-07-17T15:15:19Z","timestamp":1721229319000},"page":"593","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["New Insights into the Phylogeny of the A.Br.161 (\u201cA.Br.Heroin\u201d) Clade of Bacillus anthracis"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4013-8808","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Markus","family":"Antwerpen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Bundeswehr Institute of Microbiology (IMB), 80937 Munich, Germany"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Wolfgang","family":"Beyer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Livestock Infectiology and Environmental Hygiene, Institute of Animal Science, University of Hohenheim, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8002-7718","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Gregor","family":"Grass","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Bundeswehr Institute of Microbiology (IMB), 80937 Munich, Germany"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,7,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Turnbull, P.C. 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