How a microbe becomes a pandemic: a new story of the Black Death

Green, Monica H.

doi:10.1016/s2666-5247(20)30176-2

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Intriguingly, the oldest recovered genome associated with 0.ANT was also identified in the Tian Shan region (third century AD ) 39 and forms part of an extinct clade that caused the first plague pandemic (sixth to eighth centuries AD ) 30 . As noted previously 18 , 26 , 33 , 40 , most extant 0.ANT strains have been isolated from marmots and their ectoparasites known to be the primary Y. pestis reservoirs in these areas (Supplementary Table 21 ). Therefore, such species could represent possible candidates for the spillover that led to the second plague pandemic.…”

Section: Plague Reservoirs In the Tian Shan Areamentioning

confidence: 66%

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The source of the Black Death in fourteenth-century central Eurasia

Spyrou

Musralina

Ruscone

et al. 2022

Nature

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The origin of the medieval Black Death pandemic (ad 1346–1353) has been a topic of continuous investigation because of the pandemic’s extensive demographic impact and long-lasting consequences1,2. Until now, the most debated archaeological evidence potentially associated with the pandemic’s initiation derives from cemeteries located near Lake Issyk-Kul of modern-day Kyrgyzstan1,3–9. These sites are thought to have housed victims of a fourteenth-century epidemic as tombstone inscriptions directly dated to 1338–1339 state ‘pestilence’ as the cause of death for the buried individuals9. Here we report ancient DNA data from seven individuals exhumed from two of these cemeteries, Kara-Djigach and Burana. Our synthesis of archaeological, historical and ancient genomic data shows a clear involvement of the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis in this epidemic event. Two reconstructed ancient Y. pestis genomes represent a single strain and are identified as the most recent common ancestor of a major diversification commonly associated with the pandemic’s emergence, here dated to the first half of the fourteenth century. Comparisons with present-day diversity from Y. pestis reservoirs in the extended Tian Shan region support a local emergence of the recovered ancient strain. Through multiple lines of evidence, our data support an early fourteenth-century source of the second plague pandemic in central Eurasia.

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Section: Plague Reservoirs In the Tian Shan Areamentioning

confidence: 66%

“…The polytomy of branches 1–4 is a major event in the evolution of Y. pestis given its association with the Black Death 9 , 26 , 33 and the rich genetic diversity that emerged from it 16 (Fig. 2b ).…”

Section: Divergence Time For the Branch 1–4 Polytomymentioning

confidence: 99%

The source of the Black Death in fourteenth-century central Eurasia

Spyrou

Musralina

Ruscone

et al. 2022

Nature

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“…All lineages that diverged prior to this polytomy are grouped into Branch 0 and those diverging after form Branches 1 through 4. Because this multifurcation plays such a central role in this system, there is great interest in estimating its timing and geographic origins 13,24 .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One long-standing line of inquiry in plague's evolutionary history has been estimating the timing, origins, and spread of these past pandemics. The most intensively researched events have been: (1) the first appearance of Y. pestis in human populations 9 , (2) the onset and progression of the three pandemics 5,10,11 and (3) the inter-pandemic or "quiescent" periods where Y. pestis recedes into wild rodent reservoirs and disappears from the historical record 12,13,14 . Our knowledge of these events has deepened considerably in recent years, in part owing to technological advancements in the retrieval and sequencing of ancient DNA alongside new molecular clock dating methods 15 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Plagued by a cryptic clock: insight and issues from the global phylogeny of Yersinia pestis

et al. 2023

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Plague has an enigmatic history as a zoonotic pathogen. This infectious disease will unexpectedly appear in human populations and disappear just as suddenly. As a result, a long-standing line of inquiry has been to estimate when and where plague appeared in the past. However, there have been significant disparities between phylogenetic studies of the causative bacterium, Yersinia pestis, regarding the timing and geographic origins of its reemergence. Here, we curate and contextualize an updated phylogeny of Y. pestis using 601 genome sequences sampled globally. Through a detailed Bayesian evaluation of temporal signal in subsets of these data we demonstrate that a Y. pestis-wide molecular clock is unstable. To resolve this, we developed a new approach in which each Y. pestis population was assessed independently, enabling us to recover substantial temporal signal in five populations, including the ancient pandemic lineages which we now estimate may have emerged decades, or even centuries, before a pandemic was historically documented from European sources. Despite this methodological advancement, we only obtain robust divergence dates from populations sampled over a period of at least 90 years, indicating that genetic evidence alone is insufficient for accurately reconstructing the timing and spread of short-term plague epidemics.

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Plague Disease: From Asia to Europe and Back along the Silk Road

Schaub,

Vogel

2023

Infectious Diseases Along the Silk Roads

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How a microbe becomes a pandemic: a new story of the Black Death

Cited by 5 publications

References 6 publications

The source of the Black Death in fourteenth-century central Eurasia

The source of the Black Death in fourteenth-century central Eurasia

Plagued by a cryptic clock: insight and issues from the global phylogeny of Yersinia pestis

Plague Disease: From Asia to Europe and Back along the Silk Road

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