title: Genotyping of ancient Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains reveals historic genetic diversity.
abstract: The evolutionary history of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) has previously been studied by analysis of sequence diversity in extant strains, but not addressed by direct examination of strain genotypes in archaeological remains. Here, we use ancient DNA sequencing to type 11 single nucleotide polymorphisms and two large sequence polymorphisms in the MTBC strains present in 10 archaeological samples from skeletons from Britain and Europe dating to the second-nineteenth centuries AD. The results enable us to assign the strains to groupings and lineages recognized in the extant MTBC. We show that at least during the eighteenth-nineteenth centuries AD, strains of M. tuberculosis belonging to different genetic groups were present in Britain at the same time, possibly even at a single location, and we present evidence for a mixed infection in at least one individual. Our study shows that ancient DNA typing applied to multiple samples can provide sufficiently detailed information to contribute to both archaeological and evolutionary knowledge of the history of tuberculosis.
authors.affiliation: Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, , 131 Princess Street, Manchester M1 7DN, UK, Department of Archaeology, Durham University, , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK.
authors.forename: Romy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: Charlotte A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.forename: Terence A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000737:chemistry; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D005060:Europe; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics*; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis / Q000235:genetics*; D010802:Phylogeny; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013045:Species Specificity
keywords: ancient DNA; mixed infection; single nucleotide polymorphisms; strain typing; tuberculosis