Many zoonotic diseases are believed to have emerged during prehistory, but can we actually identify their past host range using ancient DNA? In the first publication of the Key Lab we present a 4000y old Yersinia pestis genome reconstructed from domesticated sheep. 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... - ThreadSky

keyfm.bsky.social • 17 days ago

Many zoonotic diseases are believed to have emerged during prehistory, but can we actually identify their past host range using ancient DNA? In the first publication of the Key Lab we present a 4000y old Yersinia pestis genome reconstructed from domesticated sheep. 🧵 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.07.637078v1

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keyfm.bsky.social•17 days ago

The idea that animals, in particular since the introduction of domestication during the last 10,000 years, elevated the risk for spill over events is not new and today embedded within the #OneHealth concept. Yet, ancient DNA evidence linking human and animal infections has been elusive.

keyfm.bsky.social•17 days ago

The identification of pathogen DNA in ancient animal remains comes along with a set of unique challenges. In particular, unlike humans, most domesticated animals died from slaughter instead of natural causes like infectious disease, and many remains would have been exposed to heat (cooking).

keyfm.bsky.social•17 days ago

Here we investigated ancient DNA from sheep and cattle remains from the archeological site of Arkaim, part of the pastoralist Sintashta-Petrovka culture and we identified Y. pestis in a tooth from a domesticated sheep - ARK017.

keyfm.bsky.social•17 days ago

ARK017 is part of the Late Neolithic Bronze Age (LNBA) lineage, a seemingly extinct pestis lineage so far exclusively identified from human ancient DNA. ARK017 shares features expected from what we know of the human infections lacking key gene configurations impacting flea-based transmission.

keyfm.bsky.social•17 days ago

Similar to human-derived genomes, ARK017 shares the strong correlation in pairwise temporal and genetic distance rendering it indistinguishable from human infections suggesting that sheep husbandry elevated the risk for transmission to and from humans.

keyfm.bsky.social•17 days ago

Exploring the genetic makeup of the LNBA lineage overall from the perspective of its ancestor - Y. pseudotuberculosis - we identify a retention of ancestral gene content on the LNBA lineage distinct from later historical ancient and extant Y. pestis.

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