Inskip Sarah A, Taylor G Michael, Zakrzewski Sonia R, Mays Simon A, Pike Alistair W G, Llewellyn Gareth, Williams Christopher M, Lee Oona Y-C, Wu Houdini H T, Minnikin David E, Besra Gurdyal S, Stewart Graham R
Faculteit Archaeologie, Universiteit Leiden, 2311 BE, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Department of Microbial and Cellular Sciences, School of Biosciences and Medicine, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7TE, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2015 May 13;10(5):e0124282. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0124282. eCollection 2015.
We have examined a 5th to 6th century inhumation from Great Chesterford, Essex, UK. The incomplete remains are those of a young male, aged around 21-35 years at death. The remains show osteological evidence of lepromatous leprosy (LL) and this was confirmed by lipid biomarker analysis and ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis, which provided evidence for both multi-copy and single copy loci from the Mycobacterium leprae genome. Genotyping showed the strain belonged to the 3I lineage, but the Great Chesterford isolate appeared to be ancestral to 3I strains found in later medieval cases in southern Britain and also continental Europe. While a number of contemporaneous cases exist, at present, this case of leprosy is the earliest radiocarbon dated case in Britain confirmed by both aDNA and lipid biomarkers. Importantly, Strontium and Oxygen isotope analysis suggest that the individual is likely to have originated from outside Britain. This potentially sheds light on the origins of the strain in Britain and its subsequent spread to other parts of the world, including the Americas where the 3I lineage of M. leprae is still found in some southern states of America.
我们研究了英国埃塞克斯郡大切斯特福德一处5至6世纪的土葬遗骸。这些不完整的遗骸属于一名年轻男性，死亡时年龄约为21至35岁。遗骸显示出瘤型麻风（LL）的骨学证据，脂质生物标志物分析和古DNA（aDNA）分析证实了这一点，后者为麻风分枝杆菌基因组的多拷贝和单拷贝位点提供了证据。基因分型显示该菌株属于3I谱系，但大切斯特福德分离株似乎是英国南部及欧洲大陆中世纪后期病例中发现的3I菌株的祖先。虽然存在一些同时期病例，但目前，这例麻风病是英国通过aDNA和脂质生物标志物确认的最早的放射性碳年代测定病例。重要的是，锶和氧同位素分析表明，该个体可能来自英国以外的地区。这可能有助于揭示该菌株在英国的起源及其随后向世界其他地区的传播，包括美洲，在美洲的一些南部州仍能发现麻风分枝杆菌的3I谱系。
