Hepatitis B in 16th century Europe and HBV evolution

Angela

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See: Zoe Patterson Ross et al
"[h=1]The paradox of HBV evolution as revealed from a 16th century mummy:[/h]http://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1006750

"Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a ubiquitous viral pathogen associated with large-scale morbidity and mortality in humans. However, there is considerable uncertainty over the time-scale of its origin and evolution. Initial shotgun data from a mid-16th century Italian child mummy, that was previously paleopathologically identified as having been infected with Variola virus (VARV, the agent of smallpox), showed no DNA reads for VARV yet did for hepatitis B virus (HBV). Previously, electron microscopy provided evidence for the presence of VARV in this sample, although similar analyses conducted here did not reveal any VARV particles. We attempted to enrich and sequence for both VARV and HBV DNA. Although we did not recover any reads identified as VARV, we were successful in reconstructing an HBV genome at 163.8X coverage. Strikingly, both the HBV sequence and that of the associated host mitochondrial DNA displayed a nearly identical cytosine deamination pattern near the termini of DNA fragments, characteristic of an ancient origin. In contrast, phylogenetic analyses revealed a close relationship between the putative ancient virus and contemporary HBV strains (of genotype D), at first suggesting contamination. In addressing this paradox we demonstrate that HBV evolution is characterized by a marked lack of temporal structure. This confounds attempts to use molecular clock-based methods to date the origin of this virus over the time-frame sampled so far, and means that phylogenetic measures alone cannot yet be used to determine HBV sequence authenticity. If genuine, this phylogenetic pattern indicates that the genotypes of HBV diversified long before the 16th century, and enables comparison of potential pathogenic similarities between modern and ancient HBV. These results have important implications for our understanding of the emergence and evolution of this common viral pathogen."

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Hepatitis B virus (HBV) exerts formidable morbidity and mortality in humans. We used ancient DNA techniques to recover the complete genome sequence of an HBV from the mummified remains of a child discovered in the 16th century from Naples, Italy. Strikingly, our analysis of this specimen resulted in two contrasting findings: while the damage patterns lend credence to this HBV sequence being authentically 16th century, phylogenetic analysis revealed a close relationship to recently sampled viruses as expected if the sequence were a modern contaminant. We reconcile these two observations by showing that HBV evolution over the last ~450 years is characterized by a marked lack of temporal structure that hinders attempts to resolve the evolutionary time-scale of this important human pathogen."

Poor little thing...

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Smallpox ? ok then.
I was talking about the text it says this specimen has a fungal infection in his face with noticeable pitting.
I was mentioning the simularity of a virus and pitting between 2 specimens 40k years apart.
It allso says in your article that the virus is ancient and has been around for at least 125000 years.
It also is evolving all the time so probably would look different over 40 000 years.
Im no expert and it was just a suggestion.

By the way that photo is a only a plaster cast and not the actual skull.
 
Smallpox ? ok then.
I was talking about the text it says this specimen has a fungal infection in his face with noticeable pitting.
I was mentioning the simularity of a virus and pitting between 2 specimens 40k years apart.
It allso says in your article that the virus is ancient and has been around for at least 125000 years.
It also is evolving all the time so probably would look different over 40 000 years.
Im no expert and it was just a suggestion.

By the way that photo is a only a plaster cast and not the actual skull.

No problem. None of us are experts in this topic, so we're just speculating.

The most interesting thing to me is how even our knowledge of disease will change because of these techniques, not just population genetics.
 

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