RESUMO
Yersinia pestis DNA was recently detected in human remains from 2 ancient plague pandemics in France and Germany. We have now sequenced Y pestis glpD gene in such remains, showing a 93-bp deletion specific for biotype Orientalis. These data show that only Orientalis type caused the 3 plague pandemics.
Assuntos
Peste/história , Peste/microbiologia , Dente/microbiologia , Yersinia pestis/classificação , Yersinia pestis/isolamento & purificação , Criança , DNA Bacteriano/isolamento & purificação , Surtos de Doenças , História do Século XV , História do Século XVI , História do Século XVII , História do Século XVIII , História Antiga , História Medieval , Humanos , Peste/epidemiologia , Yersinia pestis/genéticaRESUMO
Three pandemics have been attributed to plague in the last 1,500 years. Yersinia pestis caused the third, and its DNA was found in human remains from the second. The Antiqua biovar of Y. pestis may have caused the first pandemic; the other two biovars, Medievalis and Orientalis, may have caused the second and third pandemics, respectively. To test this hypothesis, we designed an original genotyping system based on intergenic spacer sequencing called multiple spacer typing (MST). We found that MST differentiated every biovar in a collection of 36 Y. pestis isolates representative of the three biovars. When MST was applied to dental pulp collected from remains of eight persons who likely died in the first and second pandemics, this system identified original sequences that matched those of Y. pestis Orientalis. These data indicate that Y. pestis caused cases of Justinian plague. The two historical plague pandemics were likely caused by Orientalis-like strains.