School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
Center for Bioarchaeological Research, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2020 Nov 23;375(1812):20190582. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0582. Epub 2020 Oct 5.
As one of the oldest known human diseases, leprosy or Hansen's disease remains a public health concern around the world with over 200 000 new cases in 2018. Most human leprosy cases are caused by , but a small number of cases are now known to be caused by , a sister taxon of . The global pattern of genomic variation in is not well defined. Particularly, in the Pacific Islands, the origins of leprosy are disputed. Historically, it has been argued that leprosy arrived on the islands during nineteenth century colonialism, but some oral traditions and palaeopathological evidence suggest an older introduction. To address this, as well as investigate patterns of pathogen exchange across the Pacific Islands, we extracted DNA from 39 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded biopsy blocks dating to 1992-2016. Using whole-genome enrichment and next-generation sequencing, we produced nine genomes dating to 1998-2015 and ranging from 4-63× depth of coverage. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that these strains belong to basal lineages within the phylogeny, specifically falling in branches 0 and 5. The phylogeographical patterning and evolutionary dating analysis of these strains support a pre-modern introduction of into the Pacific Islands. This article is part of the theme issue 'Insights into health and disease from ancient biomolecules'.
作为已知最古老的人类疾病之一，麻风病（又称 Hansen 病）仍然是全球公共卫生关注的问题，2018 年全球新增病例超过 20 万。大多数人类麻风病是由 引起的，但现在已知少数病例是由 引起的， 是 的姊妹分类单元。 的全球基因组变异模式尚未得到很好的定义。特别是在太平洋岛屿，麻风病的起源存在争议。历史上，人们认为麻风病是在 19 世纪殖民时期传入这些岛屿的，但一些口头传统和古病理学证据表明，它的传入时间更早。为了解决这一问题，并研究太平洋岛屿间病原体交换的模式，我们从 39 个福尔马林固定石蜡包埋的活检块中提取了 DNA，这些样本的采集时间为 1992 年至 2016 年。我们使用全基因组富集和下一代测序技术，生成了 9 个 基因组，这些基因组的采集时间为 1998 年至 2015 年，覆盖深度为 4-63×。系统发育分析表明，这些菌株属于 系统发育树中的基础分支，具体来说，它们属于分支 0 和 5。这些菌株的系统地理模式和进化时间分析支持了麻风病在现代之前就已传入太平洋岛屿的观点。本文是主题为“从古代生物分子看健康与疾病”特刊的一部分。
