Medieval leprosy genomics

Leprosy is one of the oldest recorded and most stigmatized diseases in human history. Widespread in medieval Europe, leprosy declined in the 16^th century and subsequently disappeared from Europe. Today, over 200,000 new leprosy cases recorded annually, however the origins and past spread of the disease are unresolved. Here we use ancient DNA methods in combination next generation sequencing to trace back the diversity and distribution of leprosy’s causative agent, Mycobacterium leprae, to improve our understanding of the history the disease.

Clean room facilities, modern DNA laboratories, Functional Genomic Centre Zürich

Prof. Verena J. Schünemann

• Prof. Dr. Johannes Krause (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History/Institute for Archaeological Sciences, University of Tübingen)
• Prof. Dr. Ben Krause-Kyora (Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology, Kiel University)
• Prof. Dr. Stewart Cole (Global Health Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne/Institute de Pasteur)
• Dr. Sarah Inskip (University of Cambridge)

• Ancient genomes reveal a high diversity of Mycobacterium leprae in medieval Europe.

• Schuenemann VJ, Avanzi C, Krause-Kyora B, Seitz A, Herbig A, Inskip S, Bonazzi M, Reiter E, Urban C, Dangvard Pedersen D, Taylor GM, Singh P, Stewart GR, Velemínský P, Likovsky J, Marcsik A, Molnár E, Pálfi G, Mariotti V, Riga A, Belcastro MG, Boldsen JL, Nebel A, Mays S, Donoghue HD, Zakrzewski S, Benjak A, Nieselt K, Cole ST, Krause J.

• PLoS Pathog. 2018 May 10;14(5):e1006997. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1006997. eCollection 2018 May.

• Genome-wide comparison of medieval and modern Mycobacterium leprae.

• Schuenemann VJ, Singh P, Mendum TA, Krause-Kyora B, Jäger G, Bos KI, Herbig A, Economou C, Benjak A, Busso P, Nebel A, Boldsen JL, Kjellström A, Wu H, Stewart GR, Taylor GM, Bauer P, Lee OY, Wu HH, Minnikin DE, Besra GS, Tucker K, Roffey S, Sow SO, Cole ST, Nieselt K, Krause J.

• Science. 2013 Jul 12;341(6142):179-83. doi: 10.1126/science.1238286. Epub 2013 Jun 13.

• Insight into the evolution and origin of leprosy bacilli from the genome sequence of Mycobacterium lepromatosis.

• Singh P, Benjak A, Schuenemann VJ, Herbig A, Avanzi C, Busso P, Nieselt K, Krause J, Vera-Cabrera L, Cole ST.

  Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Apr 7;112(14):4459-64. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1421504112. Epub 2015 Mar 23.

• Mycobacterium leprae genomes from a British medieval leprosy hospital: towards understanding an ancient epidemic.

• Mendum TA, Schuenemann VJ, Roffey S, Taylor GM, Wu H, Singh P, Tucker K, Hinds J, Cole ST, Kierzek AM, Nieselt K, Krause J, Stewart GR.

• BMC Genomics. 2014 Apr 8;15:270. doi: 10.1186/1471-2164-15-270.