Mainstreams of horizontal gene exchange in enterobacteria: consideration of the outbreak of enterohemorrhagic E. coli O104:H4 in Germany in 2011.

Background: Escherichia coli O104:H4 caused a severe outbreak in Europe in 2011. The strain TY-2482 sequenced from this outbreak allowed the discovery of its closest relatives but failed to resolve ways in which it originated and evolved. On account of the previous statement, may we expect similar upcoming outbreaks to occur recurrently or spontaneously in the future? The inability to answer these questions shows limitations of the current comparative and evolutionary genomics methods.