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Darrera modificació: 2018-11-27
Bases de dades: Sciència.cat
Guellil, Meriam - Kersten, Oliver - Namouchi, Amine - Bauer, Egil L. - Derrick, Michael - Jensen, Anne Ø. - Stenseth, Nils C. - Bramanti, Barbara, "Genomic blueprint of a relapsing fever pathogen in 15th century Scandinavia", PNAS, published ahead of print September 24 (2018), (publ. electrònica).
- Resum
- Louse-borne relapsing fever (LBRF) is known to have killed millions of people over the course of European history and remains a major cause of mortality in parts of the world. Its pathogen, Borrelia recurrentis, shares a common vector with global killers such as typhus and plague and is known for its involvement in devastating historical epidemics such as the Irish potato famine. Here, we describe a European and historical genome of B. recurrentis, recovered from a 15th century skeleton from Oslo. Our distinct European lineage has a discrete genomic makeup, displaying an ancestral oppA-1 gene and gene loss in antigenic variation sites. Our results illustrate the potential of ancient DNA research to elucidate dynamics of reductive evolution in a specialized human pathogen and to uncover aspects of human health usually invisible to the archaeological record.
- Matèries
- Medicina - Pesta i altres malalties
Arqueologia
- URL
- http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/09/18/1807266115
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