Molecular detection of Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum in 150-year-old foetal remains, southeastern France

Genomics of Ancient Pathogens: First Advances and Prospects

“…Analysis of the DNA sequences from 25 skeletal specimens from Rio de Janeiro revealed the presence of syphilis in Brazil during the colonial period [ 86 ]. Molecular methods confirmed the paleopathological hypothesis about the cases of syphilis in the 150-year-old remains of a 29-week-old fetus in France [ 87 ]. The recent study, which showed more complicated than expected geographical distribution of the early treponema-caused epidemics, was based on the reconstruction of four T. pallidum genomes from the medieval Europe (XIV-XVII centuries).…”

“…MALT is a unique tool because it can provide func tional classification of the reads, as well as a taxonomic BIOCHEMISTRY (Moscow) Vol. 87 No. 3 2022 classification, but it has limitations in the assignment, when the database under consideration contains a large number of closely related species.…”

“…The biological origin of VACV is unknown, although it was suggested that the virus similar to the equine poxvirus could be its ances tor, although the modern equine poxvirus (HPXV) BIOCHEMISTRY (Moscow) Vol. 87 No. 3 2022 genome carries many additional genes [115].…”

Variola virus DNA in skeletal remains, 17th to 18th centuries, southeastern France

“…Our study, stemming from previous palaeomicrobiological investigations performed on contemporary foetus and infants possibly exposed to treponemal disease [5], aimed to analyse 26 subjects excavated from the chapel of "Saint-Laurent de la Capelette" in Marseille city, southeastern France (see Supplementary material, Historical and archaeological context and Table S1). We carried out macroscopic and molecular analysis to evaluate the prevalence of smallpox infection among this osteoarchaeological corpus dating back to the mid-17 th -early-18 th centuries.…”

“…VARV DNA presence was investigated using several PCR detection systems (<150 bp) targeting A38R, B7R, A30L, and E9L genomic regions; a 430 bp PCR amplification (E9L) to analyze the fragmented nature of the viral genome was also performed (see Supplementary material, Methods and Table S2). Extensive precautions were taken at each step of the study to meet with the 'authenticity criteria' expected for ancient DNA studies [5]. No studies on modern smallpox were ever conducted in our facilities, and positive J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f controls were never used; negative controls (sterile water) were included systematically in extraction and DNA amplification procedures.…”