Eighteenth-century genomes show that mixed infections were common at time of peak tuberculosis in Europe

Kay, Gemma L., Sergeant, Martin J., Zhou, Zhemin, Chan, Jacqueline Z. -M., Millard, Andrew, Quick, Joshua, Szikossy, Ildiko, Pap, Ildiko, Spigelman, Mark, Loman, Nicholas J., Achtman, Mark, Donoghue, Helen D. and Pallen, Mark J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1807-3657 (2015) Eighteenth-century genomes show that mixed infections were common at time of peak tuberculosis in Europe. Nature Communications, 6. ISSN 2041-1723

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Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) was once a major killer in Europe, but it is unclear how the strains and patterns of infection at 'peak TB' relate to what we see today. Here we describe 14 genome sequences of M. tuberculosis, representing 12 distinct genotypes, obtained from human remains from eighteenth-century Hungary using metagenomics. All our historic genotypes belong to M. tuberculosis Lineage 4. Bayesian phylogenetic dating, based on samples with well-documented dates, places the most recent common ancestor of this lineage in the late Roman period. We find that most bodies yielded more than one M. tuberculosis genotype and we document an intimate epidemiological link between infections in two long-dead individuals. Our results suggest that metagenomic approaches usefully inform detection and characterization of historical and contemporary infections.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 3 - good health and well-being ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/good_health_and_well_being
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	24 Sep 2016 00:46
Last Modified:	11 May 2023 19:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/60217
DOI:	10.1038/ncomms7717

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