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DNA of the spores used in the anthrax attack
was identical to the army strain
By Alllie
DNA of the spores used in the anthrax attack was sequenced and
found to be identical to the army strain and the lack of any mutations
in the DNA shows that it was separated by 0 to 3 years from the
reference strain.
Anthrax
attack bug "identical" to army strain
The DNA sequence of the anthrax sent through the US mail in 2001
has been revealed and confirms suspicions that the bacteria originally
came from a US military laboratory.
The data released uses codenames for the reference strains against
which the attack strain was compared. But New Scientist can reveal
that the two reference strains that appear identical to the attack
strain most likely originated at the US Army Medical Research
Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick (USAMRIID),
Maryland.
The new work also shows that
substantial genetic differences can emerge in two samples of an
anthrax culture separated for only three years. This means the
attacker's anthrax was not separated from its ancestors at USAMRIID
for many generations.
The strains from the collaborative labs
appear certain to be strains B, C and D. In that case, one was
the reference Ames in Keim's collection that came from a freezer
at Porton Down, which in turn had got it from USAMRIID. Another
was a culture that came directly from USAMRIID, and the last was
from the US Army's Dugway proving ground in Utah.
TIGR spokesmen and other sources have stated that Keim could find
no differences between the attack strain and the reference Ames
in his collection at any marker tested in his lab. The tests reported
in Science are no better at doing this. So one of B and C is Keim's
Porton Down/USAMRIID reference strain. The other is likely to
be the culture directly from USAMRIID, as the reference strain
originated there and had since languished in a freezer.
So, if the anthrax had been separated from the USAMRIID ancestors
for more than 3 years, there would have been some genetic differences.
There were none. The anthrax sent to Daschle and Leahy was identical
to US Army stores. This proves that it was not an old sample stolen
or distributed 10 or 20 or 30 years ago.
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