Yersinia pestis DNA from Skeletal Remains from the 6th Century AD Reveals Insights into Justinianic Plague

PLoS Pathogens

Lothar Zöller¹  Julia M. Riehm¹  Katy L. Parise²  Dawn Birdsell²  Ingrid Wiechmann²  Barbara Bramanti³  David M. Wagner³  Paul Keim⁴  Lisa Seifert⁴  Holger C. Scholz⁵  Stephanie Hänsch⁵  Gisela Grupe⁶  Astrid Thomas⁷  Michaela Harbeck⁷ 

[1] Bundeswehr Institute of Microbiology, Munich, Germany;Center for Microbial Genetics and Genomics, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona, United States of America;Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES), Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway;Department Biology I, Anthropology and Human Genetics, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Martinsried, Germany;Institute for Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany;Institute of Palaeoanatomy, Domestication Research and the History of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Veterinary Sciences, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany;State Collection for Anthropology and Palaeoanatomy, Munich, Germany

关键词: Yersinia pestis;    Phylogenetics;    Plagues;    Polymerase chain reaction;    Ancient DNA;    Sequence alignment;    Radioactive carbon dating;    Teeth;   

DOI  :  10.1371/journal.ppat.1003349

学科分类：生物科学（综合）

来源: Public Library of Science

【 摘 要 】

Yersinia pestis, the etiologic agent of the disease plague, has been implicated in three historical pandemics. These include the third pandemic of the 19th and 20th centuries, during which plague was spread around the world, and the second pandemic of the 14th–17th centuries, which included the infamous epidemic known as the Black Death. Previous studies have confirmed that Y. pestis caused these two more recent pandemics. However, a highly spirited debate still continues as to whether Y. pestis caused the so-called Justinianic Plague of the 6th–8th centuries AD. By analyzing ancient DNA in two independent ancient DNA laboratories, we confirmed unambiguously the presence of Y. pestis DNA in human skeletal remains from an Early Medieval cemetery. In addition, we narrowed the phylogenetic position of the responsible strain down to major branch 0 on the Y. pestis phylogeny, specifically between nodes N03 and N05. Our findings confirm that Y. pestis was responsible for the Justinianic Plague, which should end the controversy regarding the etiology of this pandemic. The first genotype of a Y. pestis strain that caused the Late Antique plague provides important information about the history of the plague bacillus and suggests that the first pandemic also originated in Asia, similar to the other two plague pandemics.

【 授权许可】

CC BY