Historic Treponema pallidum genomes from Colonial Mexico retrieved from archaeological remains.

Treponema pallidum infections occur worldwide causing, among other diseases, syphilis and yaws. In particular sexually transmitted syphilis is regarded as a re-emerging infectious disease with millions of new infections annually. Here we present three historic T. pallidum genomes (two from T. pallid...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Main Authors: Verena J Schuenemann, Aditya Kumar Lankapalli, Rodrigo Barquera, Elizabeth A Nelson, Diana Iraíz Hernández, Víctor Acuña Alonzo, Kirsten I Bos, Lourdes Márquez Morfín, Alexander Herbig, Johannes Krause
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2018
Subjects:
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine
RC955-962
Public aspects of medicine
RA1-1270
Arctic
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0006447
https://doaj.org/article/c9572aff4e86403faaa48e1eaec4d66e
Description
Summary:Treponema pallidum infections occur worldwide causing, among other diseases, syphilis and yaws. In particular sexually transmitted syphilis is regarded as a re-emerging infectious disease with millions of new infections annually. Here we present three historic T. pallidum genomes (two from T. pallidum ssp. pallidum and one from T. pallidum ssp. pertenue) that have been reconstructed from skeletons recovered from the Convent of Santa Isabel in Mexico City, operational between the 17th and 19th century. Our analyses indicate that different T. pallidum subspecies caused similar diagnostic presentations that are normally associated with syphilis in infants, and potential evidence of a congenital infection of T. pallidum ssp. pertenue, the causative agent of yaws. This first reconstruction of T. pallidum genomes from archaeological material opens the possibility of studying its evolutionary history at a resolution previously assumed to be out of reach.

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