TY - JOUR
T1 - Early divergent strains of Yersinia pestis in Eurasia 5,000 years ago
AU - Rasmussen, Simon
AU - Allentoft, Morten Erik
AU - Nielsen, Kasper
AU - Orlando, Ludovic Antoine Alexandre
AU - Sikora, Martin
AU - Sjögren, Karl-Göran
AU - Pedersen, Anders Gorm
AU - Schubert, Mikkel
AU - Van Dam, Alex
AU - Kapel, Christian Moliin Outzen
AU - Nielsen, Henrik Bjørn
AU - Brunak, Søren
AU - Avetisyan, Pavel
AU - Epimakhov, Andrey
AU - Khalyapin, Mikhail Viktorovich
AU - Gnuni, Artak
AU - Kriiska, Aivar
AU - Lasak, Irena
AU - Metspalu, Mait
AU - Moiseyev, Vyacheslav
AU - Gromov, Andrei
AU - Pokutta, Dalia
AU - Saag, Lehti
AU - Varul, Liivi
AU - Yepiskoposyan, Levon
AU - Sicheritz-Ponten, Thomas
AU - Foley, Robert A
AU - Lahr, Marta Mirazón
AU - Nielsen, Rasmus
AU - Kristiansen, Kristian
AU - Willerslev, Eske
N1 - Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - The bacteria Yersinia pestis is the etiological agent of plague and has caused human pandemics with millions of deaths in historic times. How and when it originated remains contentious. Here, we report the oldest direct evidence of Yersinia pestis identified by ancient DNA in human teeth from Asia and Europe dating from 2,800 to 5,000 years ago. By sequencing the genomes, we find that these ancient plague strains are basal to all known Yersinia pestis. We find the origins of the Yersinia pestis lineage to be at least two times older than previous estimates. We also identify a temporal sequence of genetic changes that lead to increased virulence and the emergence of the bubonic plague. Our results show that plague infection was endemic in the human populations of Eurasia at least 3,000 years before any historical recordings of pandemics.
AB - The bacteria Yersinia pestis is the etiological agent of plague and has caused human pandemics with millions of deaths in historic times. How and when it originated remains contentious. Here, we report the oldest direct evidence of Yersinia pestis identified by ancient DNA in human teeth from Asia and Europe dating from 2,800 to 5,000 years ago. By sequencing the genomes, we find that these ancient plague strains are basal to all known Yersinia pestis. We find the origins of the Yersinia pestis lineage to be at least two times older than previous estimates. We also identify a temporal sequence of genetic changes that lead to increased virulence and the emergence of the bubonic plague. Our results show that plague infection was endemic in the human populations of Eurasia at least 3,000 years before any historical recordings of pandemics.
U2 - 10.1016/j.cell.2015.10.009
DO - 10.1016/j.cell.2015.10.009
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 26496604
VL - 163
SP - 571
EP - 582
JO - Cell
JF - Cell
SN - 0092-8674
IS - 3
ER -