Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Gubkina Street 3, Moscow 119991, Russia.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2020 Nov 23;375(1812):20190569. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0569. Epub 2020 Oct 5.
, the causative agent of plague, has been prevalent among humans for at least 5000 years, being accountable for several devastating epidemics in history, including the Black Death. Analyses of the genetic diversity of ancient strains of have shed light on the mechanisms of evolution and the spread of plague in Europe. However, many questions regarding the origins of the pathogen and its long persistence in Europe are still unresolved, especially during the late medieval time period. To address this, we present four newly assembled genomes from Eastern Europe (Poland and Southern Russia), dating from the fifteenth to eighteenth century AD. The analysis of polymorphisms in these genomes and their phylogenetic relationships with other ancient and modern strains may suggest several independent introductions of plague into Eastern Europe or its persistence in different reservoirs. Furthermore, with the reconstruction of a partial genome from rat skeletal remains found in a Polish ossuary, we were able to identify a potential animal reservoir in late medieval Europe. Overall, our results add new information concerning transmission and its evolutionary history in Eastern Europe. This article is part of the theme issue 'Insights into health and disease from ancient biomolecules'.
鼠疫耶尔森菌是引起鼠疫的病原体，在人类中至少流行了 5000 年，曾引发过几次历史上毁灭性的大流行，包括黑死病。对古代鼠疫菌株的遗传多样性分析揭示了鼠疫在欧洲的进化和传播机制。然而，关于病原体的起源及其在欧洲的长期存在的许多问题仍未解决，特别是在中世纪后期。为了解决这个问题，我们从东欧（波兰和俄罗斯南部）提供了四个新组装的 15 至 18 世纪 AD 的基因组。对这些基因组中的多态性分析及其与其他古代和现代 菌株的系统发育关系表明，鼠疫可能有几次独立传入东欧，或者在不同的宿主中持续存在。此外，通过对在波兰藏骨堂中发现的来自大鼠骨骼遗骸的部分 基因组进行重建，我们确定了中世纪后期欧洲的一个潜在的动物宿主。总的来说，我们的结果增加了有关 在东欧传播及其进化历史的新信息。本文是“从古代生物分子看健康与疾病”专题的一部分。
