Integrative approach using Yersinia pestis genomes to revisit the historical landscape of plague during the Medieval Period

Namouchi, A. et al. (2018) Integrative approach using Yersinia pestis genomes to revisit the historical landscape of plague during the Medieval Period. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(50), E11790-E11797. (doi: 10.1073/pnas.1812865115) (PMID:30478041) (PMCID:PMC6294933)

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Abstract

Over the last few years, genomic studies on Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of all known plague epidemics, have considerably increased in numbers, spanning a period of about 5,000 y. Nonetheless, questions concerning historical reservoirs and routes of transmission remain open. Here, we present and describe five genomes from the second half of the 14th century and reconstruct the evolutionary history of Y. pestis by reanalyzing previously published genomes and by building a comprehensive phylogeny focused on strains attributed to the Second Plague Pandemic (14th to 18th century). Corroborated by historical and ecological evidence, the presented phylogeny, which includes our Y. pestis genomes, could support the hypothesis of an entry of plague into Western European ports through distinct waves of introduction during the Medieval Period, possibly by means of fur trade routes, as well as the recirculation of plague within the human population via trade routes and human movement.

Item Type:Articles
Additional Information:This project was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the FP7-IDEAS-ERC Program (Grant 324249). Part of the data analysis was performed on the Abel Cluster, owned by the University of Oslo and the Norwegian metacenter for High Performance Computing (NOTUR) and operated by the Department for Research Computing at the University Center for Information Technology Services (USIT), University of Oslo. C.O. is funded by Satsningsmiljø Grant Comparative Infection Biology (COMPI), Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo.
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Cohn, Professor Samuel
Authors: Namouchi, A., Guellil, M., Kersten, O., Hänsch, S., Ottoni, C., Schmid, B. V., Pacciani, E., Quaglia, L., Vermunt, M., Bauer, E. L., Derrick, M., Jensen, A. Ø., Kacki, S., Cohn, S. K., Stenseth, N. C., and Bramanti, B.
College/School:College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > History
Journal Name:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Publisher:National Academy of Sciences
ISSN:0027-8424
ISSN (Online):1091-6490
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2018 The Authors
First Published:First published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 115(50):E11790-E11797
Publisher Policy:Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

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