Citation for published item: p r elloD it le F nd o ertsD gh rlotte eF nd uerudinD emmielle nd w¤ ullerD omy @PHIUA 9e TSHHEye rEold widdle xeolithi hild from oller g ve @viguri D st lyA with pro le multifo l osteo rti ul r tu er ulosisF9D sntern tion l journ l of p leop thologyFD IU F ppF TUEURF Further information on publisher's website: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details.

The ability to capture genetic variation with unprecedented resolution improves our understanding of bacterial populations and their ability to cause disease. The goal of the pathogenomics era is to define genetic diversity that results in disease. Despite the economic losses caused by vector-borne bacteria in the Order Rickettsiales, little is known about the genetic variants responsible for observed phenotypes. The tick-transmitted rickettsial pathogen Anaplasma marginale infects cattle in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide, including Australia. Genomic analysis of North American A. marginale strains reveals a closed core genome defined by high levels of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs). Here we report the first genome sequences and comparative analysis for Australian strains that differ in virulence and transmissibility. A list of genetic differences that segregate with phenotype was evaluated for the ability to distinguish the attenuated strain from virulent field strains. Phylogenetic analyses of the Australian strains revealed a marked evolutionary distance from all previously sequenced strains. SNP analysis showed a strikingly reduced genetic diversity between these strains, with the smallest number of SNPs detected between any two A. marginale strains. The low diversity between these phenotypically distinct bacteria presents a unique opportunity to identify the genetic determinants of virulence and transmission.

We examined six skeletons from mediaeval contexts from two sites in England for the presence of Mycobacterium leprae DNA, each of the skeletons displaying osteological indicators of leprosy. Polymerase chain reactions directed at the species-specific RLEP multicopy sequence produced positive results with three skeletons, these being among those with the clearest osteological signs of leprosy. Following in-solution hybridization capture, sufficient sequence reads were obtained to cover >70% of the M. leprae genomes from these three skeletons, with a mean read depth of 4-10. Two skeletons from a mediaeval hospital in Chichester, UK, dating to the 14 th-17 th centuries AD, contained M. leprae strains of subtype 3I, which has previously been reported in mediaeval England. The third skeleton, from a churchyard cemetery at Raunds Furnells, UK, dating to the 10 th to mid-12 th centuries AD, carried subtype 3K, which has been recorded at 7 th-13 th century AD sites in Turkey, Hungary and Denmark, but not previously in Britain. We suggest that travellers to the Holy Land might have been responsible for the transmission of subtype 3K from southeast Europe to Britain.