Biology subjects

Bos, K. I.

Publications and source records attributed to Bos, K. I..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2017

African Nonhuman Primates Are Infected With The Yaws Bacterium Treponema pallidum subsp. pertenue

Treponema pallidum subsp. pertenue (TPE) is the causative agent of yaws. The disease was subject to global eradication efforts in the mid 20th century but reemerged in West Africa, Southern Asia, and the Pacific region. Despite its importance for eradication, detailed data on possible nonhuman disease reservoirs are missing. A number of African nonhuman primates (NHPs) have been reported to show skin ulcerations suggestive of treponemal infection in humans. Furthermore antibodies against Treponema pallidum (TP) have been repeatedly detected in wild NHP populations. While genetic studies confirmed that NHPs are infected with TP strains, subspecies identification was only possible once for a strain isolated in 1966, pinpointing the involvement of TPE. We therefore collected a number of recently isolated simian TP strains and determined eight whole genome sequences using hybridization capture or long-range PCR combined with next-generation sequencing. These new genomes were compared with those of known human TP isolates. Our results show that naturally occurring simian TP strains circulating in three African NHP species all cluster with human TPE strains and show the same genomic structure as human TPE strains. These data indicate that humans are not the exclusive host for the yaws bacterium and that a One Health approach is required to achieve sustainable eradication of human yaws.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2017

Salmonella enterica genomes recovered from victims of a major 16th century epidemic in Mexico

Indigenous populations of the Americas experienced high mortality rates during the early contact period as a result of infectious diseases, many of which were introduced by Europeans. Most of the pathogenic agents that caused these outbreaks remain unknown. Using a metagenomic tool called MALT to search for traces of ancient pathogen DNA, we were able to identify Salmonella enterica in individuals buried in an early contact era epidemic cemetery at Teposcolula-Yucundaa, Oaxaca in southern Mexico. This cemetery is linked to the 1545-1550 CE epidemic locally known as \"cocoliztli\", the cause of which has been debated for over a century. Here we present two reconstructed ancient genomes for Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Paratyphi C, a bacterial cause of enteric fever. We propose that S. Paratyphi C contributed to the population decline during the 1545 cocoliztli outbreak in Mexico.\n\nOne Sentence SummaryGenomic evidence of enteric fever identified in an indigenous population from early contact period Mexico.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2016

The Stone Age Plague: 1000 years of Persistence in Eurasia

Molecular signatures of Yersinia pestis were recently identified in prehistoric Eurasian individuals, thus suggesting Y. pestis caused some form of disease in humans prior to the first historically documented pandemic. Here, we present six new Y. pestis genomes spanning from the European Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age (LNBA) dating from 4,800 to 3,700 BP. We show that all currently investigated LNBA strains form a single genetic clade in the Y. pestis phylogeny that appears to be extinct. Interpreting our data within the context of recent ancient human genomic evidence, which suggests an increase in human mobility during the LNBA, we propose a possible scenario for the spread of Y. pestis during the LNBA: Y. pestis may have entered Europe from Central Eurasia during an expansion of steppe people, persisted within Europe until the mid Bronze Age, and moved back towards Central Eurasia in parallel with subsequent human population movements.

evolutionary biology↗