A 3,000-year-old, basal S. enterica lineage from Bronze Age Xinjiang suggests spread along the Proto-Silk Road.
PLoS Pathog
; 17(9): e1009886, 2021 09.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34547027
Salmonella enterica (S. enterica) has infected humans for a long time, but its evolutionary history and geographic spread across Eurasia is still poorly understood. Here, we screened for pathogen DNA in 14 ancient individuals from the Bronze Age Quanergou cemetery (XBQ), Xinjiang, China. In 6 individuals we detected S. enterica. We reconstructed S. enterica genomes from those individuals, which form a previously undetected phylogenetic branch basal to Paratyphi C, Typhisuis and Choleraesuis-the so-called Para C lineage. Based on pseudogene frequency, our analysis suggests that the ancient S. enterica strains were not host adapted. One genome, however, harbors the Salmonella pathogenicity island 7 (SPI-7), which is thought to be involved in (para)typhoid disease in humans. This offers first evidence that SPI-7 was acquired prior to the emergence of human-adapted Paratyphi C around 1,000 years ago. Altogether, our results show that Salmonella enterica infected humans in Eastern Eurasia at least 3,000 years ago, and provide the first ancient DNA evidence for the spread of a pathogen along the Proto-Silk Road.
Full text:
1
Database:
MEDLINE
Traditional Medicines:
Medicinas_tradicionales_de_asia
/
Medicina_china
Main subject:
Salmonella Infections
/
Salmonella enterica
Country/Region as subject:
Asia
Language:
En
Journal:
PLoS Pathog
Year:
2021
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
China