Genomic blueprint of a relapsing fever pathogen in 15th century Scandinavia

Abstract

SignificanceLouse-borne relapsing fever was one of the major diseases affecting Western human populations, with its last major pandemic killing millions after World War I. Despite the major role fevers have played in epidemic events throughout history, molecular evidence for the presence of their etiological agent has been extremely scarce in historical samples worldwide. By comparing our medieval Borrelia recurrentis genome with modern representatives of the species, we offer an historical snapshot of genomic changes in an immune-evasion system and of reductive evolution in a specialized vector-borne human pathogen. This shotgun sequencing project highlights the potential for ancient DNA research to uncover pathogens which are undetectable to osteological analysis but are known to have played major roles in European health historically.

Ancient pathogen genomics as an emerging tool for infectious disease research

“…Pathogen aDNA is thought to be preserved within the remnants of the pulp chamber, likely as part of desiccated blood 8,17 . Consequently, tooth sampling has proved successful in the retrieval of whole genomes or genome wide data (that is, low coverage genomes that have provided limited analytical resolution) from ancient bacteria such as Y. pestis 20,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] , Borrelia recurrentis 40 and Salmonella enterica 41 ; ancient eukaryotic pathogens such as Plasmodium falciparum 42 ; and ancient viruses such as hepatitis B virus (HBV) 43,44 and human parvovirus B19 (B19V) 45 . Even M. leprae, which commonly manifests in the chronic form, has been retrieved from ancient teeth 27,28 .…”

“Bridging the Gap” Everything that Could Have Been Avoided If We Had Applied Gender Medicine, Pharmacogenetics and Personalized Medicine in the Gender-Omics and Sex-Omics Era

“…Some trace of animal-to-human transmission has been retrieved in ancient skeletons of victims [224]. The condition of crowded settlements that can promote epidemic spread of communicable diseases among humans, including through vectors [225,226], may have arisen during the Neolithic as well, about 12,000 years before present.…”

A 2,000-year-old specimen with intraerythrocyticBartonella quintana

“…Indeed, ancient dental pulp preserves ancient pathogen biomolecules, including mycolic acids 3 and DNA, under favorable biochemical conditions 4 . From the ancient dental pulp, genome-wide data were analyzed from various micro-organisms including bacteria, viruses and parasites, such as the plague agent Yersinia pestis 5–17 , the relapsing fever agent Borrelia recurrentis 18 , the leprosy agent Mycobacterium leprae 19–21 , the typhoid fever pathogen Salmonella enterica 22,23 , the hepatitis B virus 24,25 and the malaria agent Plasmodium falciparum 26 . In addition, dental pulp preserves ancient proteins in such a way that the paleoproteomics of pathogens can be performed 27 .…”