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Open AccessAncient Plasmodium genomes shed light on the history of human malaria
Malaria-causing protozoa of the genus Plasmodium have exerted one of the strongest selective pressures on the human genome, and resistance alleles provide biomolecular footprints that outline the historical reach...
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Open AccessAuthor Correction: The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool
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Open AccessThe Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool
The history of the British Isles and Ireland is characterized by multiple periods of major cultural change, including the influential transformation after the end of Roman rule, which precipitated shifts in la...
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Open AccessThe source of the Black Death in fourteenth-century central Eurasia
The origin of the medieval Black Death pandemic (ad 1346–1353) has been a topic of continuous investigation because of the pandemic’s extensive demographic impact and long-lasting consequences1,2. Until now, the ...
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Open AccessGeographically dispersed zoonotic tuberculosis in pre-contact South American human populations
Previous ancient DNA research has shown that Mycobacterium pinnipedii, which today causes tuberculosis (TB) primarily in pinnipeds, infected human populations living in the coastal areas of Peru prior to European...
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Open AccessA systematic investigation of human DNA preservation in medieval skeletons
Ancient DNA (aDNA) analyses necessitate the destructive sampling of archaeological material. Currently, the cochlea, part of the osseous inner ear located inside the petrous pyramid, is the most sought after s...
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Open AccessA seventeenth-century Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome supports a Neolithic emergence of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex
Although tuberculosis accounts for the highest mortality from a bacterial infection on a global scale, questions persist regarding its origin. One hypothesis based on modern Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MT...
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Open AccessA treponemal genome from an historic plague victim supports a recent emergence of yaws and its presence in 15th century Europe
Developments in techniques for identification of pathogen DNA in archaeological samples can expand our resolution of disease detection. Our application of a non-targeted molecular screening tool for the parall...
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Open AccessHOPS: automated detection and authentication of pathogen DNA in archaeological remains
High-throughput DNA sequencing enables large-scale metagenomic analyses of complex biological systems. Such analyses are not restricted to present-day samples and can also be applied to molecular data from arc...
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Open AccessPhylogeography of the second plague pandemic revealed through analysis of historical Yersinia pestis genomes
The second plague pandemic, caused by Yersinia pestis, devastated Europe and the nearby regions between the 14th and 18th centuries AD. Here we analyse human remains from ten European archaeological sites spannin...
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Ancient pathogen genomics as an emerging tool for infectious disease research
Over the past decade, a genomics revolution, made possible through the development of high-throughput sequencing, has triggered considerable progress in the study of ancient DNA, enabling complete genomes of p...
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TB’s Chinese travels
Statistical modelling from an impressively large genetic dataset traces the historical origins and spread of China’s modern tuberculosis (TB) epidemic. But there is more scope in the future to harness the pote...
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Open AccessDifferential preservation of endogenous human and microbial DNA in dental calculus and dentin
Dental calculus (calcified dental plaque) is prevalent in archaeological skeletal collections and is a rich source of oral microbiome and host-derived ancient biomolecules. Recently, it has been proposed that ...
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Open AccessAnalysis of 3800-year-old Yersinia pestis genomes suggests Bronze Age origin for bubonic plague
The origin of Yersinia pestis and the early stages of its evolution are fundamental subjects of investigation given its high virulence and mortality that resulted from past pandemics. Although the earliest eviden...
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Salmonella enterica genomes from victims of a major sixteenth-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 ag...
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Origin of modern syphilis and emergence of a pandemic Treponema pallidum cluster
The abrupt onslaught of the syphilis pandemic that started in the late fifteenth century established this devastating infectious disease as one of the most feared in human history1. Surprisingly, despite the avai...
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Open AccessEffect of X-ray irradiation on ancient DNA in sub-fossil bones – Guidelines for safe X-ray imaging
Sub-fossilised remains may still contain highly degraded ancient DNA (aDNA) useful for palaeogenetic investigations. Whether X-ray computed [micro-] tomography ([μ]CT) imaging of these fossils may further dama...
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Pre-Columbian mycobacterial genomes reveal seals as a source of New World human tuberculosis
Three 1,000-year-old mycobacterial genomes from Peruvian human skeletons reveal that a member of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex derived from seals caused human disease before contact in the Americas.
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Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans
A sequencing study comparing ancient and contemporary genomes reveals that most present-day Europeans derive from at least three highly differentiated populations: west European hunter-gatherers, ancient north...
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Erratum: A draft genome of Yersinia pestis from victims of the Black Death
Nature 478, 506–510 (2011) In this Letter, the GenBank accession number was wrongly printed as SRA045745.1. It should be SRA045745. Supplementary Tables 3a and 4 have also been corrected.
