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Variola virus genome sequenced from an eighteenth-century museum specimen supports the recent origin of smallpox

Smallpox, caused by the variola virus (VARV), was a highly virulent disease with high mortality rates causing a major threat for global human health until its successful eradication in 1980. Despite previously published historic and modern VARV genomes, its past dissemination and diversity remain de...

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Autores principales: Ferrari, Giada, Neukamm, Judith, Baalsrud, Helle T., Breidenstein, Abagail M., Ravinet, Mark, Phillips, Carina, Rühli, Frank, Bouwman, Abigail, Schuenemann, Verena J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7702794/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33012235
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0572
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author Ferrari, Giada
Neukamm, Judith
Baalsrud, Helle T.
Breidenstein, Abagail M.
Ravinet, Mark
Phillips, Carina
Rühli, Frank
Bouwman, Abigail
Schuenemann, Verena J.
author_facet Ferrari, Giada
Neukamm, Judith
Baalsrud, Helle T.
Breidenstein, Abagail M.
Ravinet, Mark
Phillips, Carina
Rühli, Frank
Bouwman, Abigail
Schuenemann, Verena J.
author_sort Ferrari, Giada
collection PubMed
description Smallpox, caused by the variola virus (VARV), was a highly virulent disease with high mortality rates causing a major threat for global human health until its successful eradication in 1980. Despite previously published historic and modern VARV genomes, its past dissemination and diversity remain debated. To understand the evolutionary history of VARV with respect to historic and modern VARV genetic variation in Europe, we sequenced a VARV genome from a well-described eighteenth-century case from England (specimen P328). In our phylogenetic analysis, the new genome falls between the modern strains and another historic strain from Lithuania, supporting previous claims of larger diversity in early modern Europe compared to the twentieth century. Our analyses also resolve a previous controversy regarding the common ancestor between modern and historic strains by confirming a later date around the seventeenth century. Overall, our results point to the benefit of historic genomes for better resolution of past VARV diversity and highlight the value of such historic genomes from around the world to further understand the evolutionary history of smallpox as well as related diseases. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Insights into health and disease from ancient biomolecules’.
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spelling pubmed-77027942020-11-30 Variola virus genome sequenced from an eighteenth-century museum specimen supports the recent origin of smallpox Ferrari, Giada Neukamm, Judith Baalsrud, Helle T. Breidenstein, Abagail M. Ravinet, Mark Phillips, Carina Rühli, Frank Bouwman, Abigail Schuenemann, Verena J. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci Articles Smallpox, caused by the variola virus (VARV), was a highly virulent disease with high mortality rates causing a major threat for global human health until its successful eradication in 1980. Despite previously published historic and modern VARV genomes, its past dissemination and diversity remain debated. To understand the evolutionary history of VARV with respect to historic and modern VARV genetic variation in Europe, we sequenced a VARV genome from a well-described eighteenth-century case from England (specimen P328). In our phylogenetic analysis, the new genome falls between the modern strains and another historic strain from Lithuania, supporting previous claims of larger diversity in early modern Europe compared to the twentieth century. Our analyses also resolve a previous controversy regarding the common ancestor between modern and historic strains by confirming a later date around the seventeenth century. Overall, our results point to the benefit of historic genomes for better resolution of past VARV diversity and highlight the value of such historic genomes from around the world to further understand the evolutionary history of smallpox as well as related diseases. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Insights into health and disease from ancient biomolecules’. The Royal Society 2020-11-23 2020-10-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7702794/ /pubmed/33012235 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0572 Text en © 2020 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Articles
Ferrari, Giada
Neukamm, Judith
Baalsrud, Helle T.
Breidenstein, Abagail M.
Ravinet, Mark
Phillips, Carina
Rühli, Frank
Bouwman, Abigail
Schuenemann, Verena J.
Variola virus genome sequenced from an eighteenth-century museum specimen supports the recent origin of smallpox
title Variola virus genome sequenced from an eighteenth-century museum specimen supports the recent origin of smallpox
title_full Variola virus genome sequenced from an eighteenth-century museum specimen supports the recent origin of smallpox
title_fullStr Variola virus genome sequenced from an eighteenth-century museum specimen supports the recent origin of smallpox
title_full_unstemmed Variola virus genome sequenced from an eighteenth-century museum specimen supports the recent origin of smallpox
title_short Variola virus genome sequenced from an eighteenth-century museum specimen supports the recent origin of smallpox
title_sort variola virus genome sequenced from an eighteenth-century museum specimen supports the recent origin of smallpox
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7702794/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33012235
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0572
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