The bacteria responsible for the Black Death that killed a third of Europe’s population over five years ending in 1351 has changed little since then, though it’s held in check by health advances, scientists said.
Researchers extracted DNA from the teeth of four skeletons exhumed from a cemetery near the Tower of London to reconstruct the Yersinia pestis genome, according to a report today in the journal Nature. The study determined the germ is still circulating yet probably didn’t cause earlier plagues in Rome and Greece, suggesting the European outbreak was the first to spread the bacteria worldwide, the researchers said.
“We do not see a single position in the ancient genome that cannot be found in modern Y. pestis in the same state,” said researcher Johannes Kraus, a professor in the departments of archeological sciences and human genetics at the University of Tubingen in Tubingen, Germany.
Modern antibiotics can effectively kill the ancient bacteria, said Hendrik Poinar, a researcher at the departments of ancient DNA, biology and infectious disease at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
The virulence of the outbreak may have occurred because there were other infections circulating at the time, there was a dramatic change in the weather and a less hearty population, Poinar said during a televised news conference. “There is no smoking gun,” he said.
Researchers used tools and technology recently developed to study Neanderthals to enrich the material they extracted from the teeth to ensure they had authentic ancient bacteria. They analyzed about 99 percent of the genome, Kraus said.
More work is needed to examine small variations to ensure a different layout wouldn’t make it more deadly, according to the researchers.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michelle Fay Cortez in Minneapolis at mcortez@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net
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