Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Nature. 2024 Mar;627(8002):182-188. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06965-x. Epub 2024 Jan 24.
The origins of treponemal diseases have long remained unknown, especially considering the sudden onset of the first syphilis epidemic in the late 15th century in Europe and its hypothesized arrival from the Americas with Columbus' expeditions. Recently, ancient DNA evidence has revealed various treponemal infections circulating in early modern Europe and colonial-era Mexico. However, there has been to our knowledge no genomic evidence of treponematosis recovered from either the Americas or the Old World that can be reliably dated to the time before the first trans-Atlantic contacts. Here, we present treponemal genomes from nearly 2,000-year-old human remains from Brazil. We reconstruct four ancient genomes of a prehistoric treponemal pathogen, most closely related to the bejel-causing agent Treponema pallidum endemicum. Contradicting the modern day geographical niche of bejel in the arid regions of the world, the results call into question the previous palaeopathological characterization of treponeme subspecies and showcase their adaptive potential. A high-coverage genome is used to improve molecular clock date estimations, placing the divergence of modern T. pallidum subspecies firmly in pre-Columbian times. Overall, our study demonstrates the opportunities within archaeogenetics to uncover key events in pathogen evolution and emergence, paving the way to new hypotheses on the origin and spread of treponematoses.
梅毒螺旋体疾病的起源长期以来一直不为人知,尤其是考虑到 15 世纪末期梅毒首次在欧洲爆发,并且其假设是随哥伦布的探险队从美洲传入。最近,古 DNA 证据揭示了早期现代欧洲和殖民时期墨西哥流行的各种梅毒螺旋体感染。然而,据我们所知,在美洲或旧世界都没有发现可追溯到第一次跨大西洋接触之前的梅毒螺旋体病的基因组证据。在这里,我们展示了来自巴西近 2000 年前人类遗骸的梅毒螺旋体基因组。我们重建了 4 种史前梅毒螺旋体病原体的古老基因组,它们与引起贝杰尔病的病原体苍白密螺旋体地方性亚种最为密切相关。与现代贝杰尔病在世界干旱地区的地理小生境相矛盾的是,这些结果质疑了以前关于梅毒螺旋体亚种的古病理学特征,并展示了它们的适应潜力。利用一个高覆盖率的基因组来提高分子钟日期估计值,将现代苍白密螺旋体亚种的分化时间确定在哥伦布之前。总的来说,我们的研究表明,考古遗传学为揭示病原体进化和出现的关键事件提供了机会,为梅毒螺旋体病的起源和传播提供了新的假说。