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PLoS Pathogens. Distinct Clones of Yersinia pestis Caused the Black Death
PLoS Pathogens: Distinct Clones of Yersinia pestis Caused the Black Death (Abstract, edited)
[Source: PLoS Pathogens, full text: <cite cite="http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1001134">PLoS Pathogens: Distinct Clones of Yersinia pestis Caused the Black Death</cite>. Abstract, edited.]
Distinct Clones of Yersinia pestis Caused the Black Death
Stephanie Haensch 1, Raffaella Bianucci 2,3, Michel Signoli 3,4, Minoarisoa Rajerison 5, Michael Schultz 6, Sacha Kacki 7,8, Marco Vermunt 9, Darlene A. Weston 10,11,12, Derek Hurst 13, Mark Achtman 14, Elisabeth Carniel 15, Barbara Bramanti 1*
1 Institute for Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany,
2 Laboratory of Criminalistic Sciences Department of Anatomy, Pharmacology and Legal Medicine, University of Turin, Turin, Italy,
3 Unit? d'Anthropologie Bioculturelle, Facult? de Medecine, University of Mediterranean-CNRS-EFS, Marseille, France,
4 Centre d'?tudes Pr?histoire, Antiquit?, Moyen-?ge, UMR 6130 CNRS?250 University of Nice, Valbonne, France,
5 Center for Plague, Institute Pasteur de Madagascar, World Health Organization Collaborating, Antananarivo, Madagascar,
6 Department of Anatomy and Embryology Medical Faculty, Georg-August University, G?ttingen, Germany,
7 Inrap, Villeneuve-d'Ascq Archaeological Center, Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France,
8 Laboratoire d'Anthropologie des Populations du Pass?, Universit? Bordeaux 1, Talence, France,
9 Department of Monuments and Archaeology, Municipality of Bergen op Zoom, Bergen op Zoom, The Netherlands,
10 Barge's Anthropologica, Department of Anatomy and Embryology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands,
11 Division of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom,
12 Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany,
13 Worcestershire Historic Environment and Archaeology Service, Worcestershire County Council, Worcester, United Kingdom,
14 Environmental Research Institute, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland, 15 Yersinia Research Unit, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
Abstract
From AD 1347 to AD 1353, the Black Death killed tens of millions of people in Europe, leaving misery and devastation in its wake, with successive epidemics ravaging the continent until the 18th century. The etiology of this disease has remained highly controversial, ranging from claims based on genetics and the historical descriptions of symptoms that it was caused by Yersinia pestis to conclusions that it must have been caused by other pathogens. It has also been disputed whether plague had the same etiology in northern and southern Europe. Here we identified DNA and protein signatures specific for Y. pestis in human skeletons from mass graves in northern, central and southern Europe that were associated archaeologically with the Black Death and subsequent resurgences. We confirm that Y. pestis caused the Black Death and later epidemics on the entire European continent over the course of four centuries. Furthermore, on the basis of 17 single nucleotide polymorphisms plus the absence of a deletion in glpD gene, our aDNA results identified two previously unknown but related clades of Y. pestis associated with distinct medieval mass graves. These findings suggest that plague was imported to Europe on two or more occasions, each following a distinct route. These two clades are ancestral to modern isolates of Y. pestis biovars Orientalis and Medievalis. Our results clarify the etiology of the Black Death and provide a paradigm for a detailed historical reconstruction of the infection routes followed by this disease.
Author Summary
Several historical epidemic waves of plague have been attributed to Yersinia pestis, the etiologic agent of modern plague. The most famous of these was the second pandemic which was active in Europe from AD 1347 until 1750, and began with the ?Black Death?. The most informative method to establish the etiological nature of these ancient infections should be the analysis of ancient DNA, but the results of this method have been controversial. Here, by combining ancient DNA analyses and protein-specific detection, we demonstrate unambiguously that Y. pestis caused the Black Death. Furthermore, we show that at least two variants of Y. pestis spread over Europe during the second pandemic. The analysis of up to 20 diagnostic markers reveals that the two variants evolved near the time that phylogenetic branches 1 and 2 separated and may no longer exist. Our results thus resolve a long-standing debate about the etiology of the Black Death and provide key information about the evolution of the plague bacillus and the spread of the disease during the Middle Ages.
Citation: Haensch S, Bianucci R, Signoli M, Rajerison M, Schultz M, et al. (2010) Distinct Clones of Yersinia pestis Caused the Black Death. PLoS Pathog 6(10): e1001134. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1001134
Editor: Nora J. Besansky, University of Notre Dame, United States of AmericaReceived: May 28, 2010; Accepted: September 7, 2010; Published: October 7, 2010
Copyright: ? 2010 Haensch et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: This research was supported by grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG Br 2965/1-1 and Br 2965/1-2), the University of Mainz (FP1-2007) and the Science Foundation of Ireland (05/FE1/B882). The RDT analysis was supported by Compagnia di San Paolo (2007.0171). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
* E-mail: bramanti@uni-mainz.de
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[Source: PLoS Pathogens, full text: <cite cite="http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1001134">PLoS Pathogens: Distinct Clones of Yersinia pestis Caused the Black Death</cite>. Abstract, edited.]
Distinct Clones of Yersinia pestis Caused the Black Death
Stephanie Haensch 1, Raffaella Bianucci 2,3, Michel Signoli 3,4, Minoarisoa Rajerison 5, Michael Schultz 6, Sacha Kacki 7,8, Marco Vermunt 9, Darlene A. Weston 10,11,12, Derek Hurst 13, Mark Achtman 14, Elisabeth Carniel 15, Barbara Bramanti 1*
1 Institute for Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany,
2 Laboratory of Criminalistic Sciences Department of Anatomy, Pharmacology and Legal Medicine, University of Turin, Turin, Italy,
3 Unit? d'Anthropologie Bioculturelle, Facult? de Medecine, University of Mediterranean-CNRS-EFS, Marseille, France,
4 Centre d'?tudes Pr?histoire, Antiquit?, Moyen-?ge, UMR 6130 CNRS?250 University of Nice, Valbonne, France,
5 Center for Plague, Institute Pasteur de Madagascar, World Health Organization Collaborating, Antananarivo, Madagascar,
6 Department of Anatomy and Embryology Medical Faculty, Georg-August University, G?ttingen, Germany,
7 Inrap, Villeneuve-d'Ascq Archaeological Center, Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France,
8 Laboratoire d'Anthropologie des Populations du Pass?, Universit? Bordeaux 1, Talence, France,
9 Department of Monuments and Archaeology, Municipality of Bergen op Zoom, Bergen op Zoom, The Netherlands,
10 Barge's Anthropologica, Department of Anatomy and Embryology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands,
11 Division of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom,
12 Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany,
13 Worcestershire Historic Environment and Archaeology Service, Worcestershire County Council, Worcester, United Kingdom,
14 Environmental Research Institute, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland, 15 Yersinia Research Unit, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
Abstract
From AD 1347 to AD 1353, the Black Death killed tens of millions of people in Europe, leaving misery and devastation in its wake, with successive epidemics ravaging the continent until the 18th century. The etiology of this disease has remained highly controversial, ranging from claims based on genetics and the historical descriptions of symptoms that it was caused by Yersinia pestis to conclusions that it must have been caused by other pathogens. It has also been disputed whether plague had the same etiology in northern and southern Europe. Here we identified DNA and protein signatures specific for Y. pestis in human skeletons from mass graves in northern, central and southern Europe that were associated archaeologically with the Black Death and subsequent resurgences. We confirm that Y. pestis caused the Black Death and later epidemics on the entire European continent over the course of four centuries. Furthermore, on the basis of 17 single nucleotide polymorphisms plus the absence of a deletion in glpD gene, our aDNA results identified two previously unknown but related clades of Y. pestis associated with distinct medieval mass graves. These findings suggest that plague was imported to Europe on two or more occasions, each following a distinct route. These two clades are ancestral to modern isolates of Y. pestis biovars Orientalis and Medievalis. Our results clarify the etiology of the Black Death and provide a paradigm for a detailed historical reconstruction of the infection routes followed by this disease.
Author Summary
Several historical epidemic waves of plague have been attributed to Yersinia pestis, the etiologic agent of modern plague. The most famous of these was the second pandemic which was active in Europe from AD 1347 until 1750, and began with the ?Black Death?. The most informative method to establish the etiological nature of these ancient infections should be the analysis of ancient DNA, but the results of this method have been controversial. Here, by combining ancient DNA analyses and protein-specific detection, we demonstrate unambiguously that Y. pestis caused the Black Death. Furthermore, we show that at least two variants of Y. pestis spread over Europe during the second pandemic. The analysis of up to 20 diagnostic markers reveals that the two variants evolved near the time that phylogenetic branches 1 and 2 separated and may no longer exist. Our results thus resolve a long-standing debate about the etiology of the Black Death and provide key information about the evolution of the plague bacillus and the spread of the disease during the Middle Ages.
Citation: Haensch S, Bianucci R, Signoli M, Rajerison M, Schultz M, et al. (2010) Distinct Clones of Yersinia pestis Caused the Black Death. PLoS Pathog 6(10): e1001134. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1001134
Editor: Nora J. Besansky, University of Notre Dame, United States of AmericaReceived: May 28, 2010; Accepted: September 7, 2010; Published: October 7, 2010
Copyright: ? 2010 Haensch et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: This research was supported by grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG Br 2965/1-1 and Br 2965/1-2), the University of Mainz (FP1-2007) and the Science Foundation of Ireland (05/FE1/B882). The RDT analysis was supported by Compagnia di San Paolo (2007.0171). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
* E-mail: bramanti@uni-mainz.de
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