Perspective: The PlaguePhylogeography of the Second Plague Pandemic Revealed Through Analysis of Historical Yersinia Pestis Genomes
The second plague pandemic (14th-18th centuries) began with the Black Death in the mid-14th century and continued with lethal outbreaks in and around Europe until the 18th century. The pandemic devastated the European continent, killing up to 60 percent of the population. Where did this strain of Yersinia pestis, the plague-causing bacterium, come from? How did it evolve and expand once it arrived?
The second plague pandemic (14th-18th centuries) began with the Black Death in the mid-14th century and continued with lethal outbreaks in and around Europe until the 18th century. The pandemic devastated the European continent, killing up to 60 percent of the population.
Where did this strain of Yersinia pestis, the plague-causing bacterium, come from? How did it evolve and expand once it arrived?
In a study published in Nature Communications, the researchers reconstructed 34 Y. pestis genomes, tracing the genetic history of the bacterium. The research offers insights into the initiation and progression of the second plague pandemic in Europe.
Global Biodefsne reports:
Despite the ubiquity of the Black Death in historical texts and the popular imagination, the entry point of the Y. pestis bacterium at this time and the route it traveled through Europe remain unclear, due to a lack of data from early outbreaks and a general scarcity of published ancient Y. pestis genomes. In the current study, researchers reconstructed plague genomes from the teeth of 34 individuals, including two from Laishevo, in the Volga region of Russia, and found a single strain that is ancestral to all second pandemic strains. In addition, the researchers observe an absence of genomic diversity from samples during the Black Death. “These findings indicate a single entry of Y. pestis into Europe through the east”, explains first author Maria Spyrou of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. “However, it is possible that additional interpretations may be revealed with future discoveries of un-sampled diversity in western Eurasia”, she notes.
“We have shown that extensive analysis of ancient Y. pestis genomes can provide unique insights into the microevolution of a pathogen over a period of several hundred years,” senior author Johannes Krause, Director of the Department of Archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, told Global Biodefense.
