As one of the oldest known human diseases, leprosy or Hansen's disease remains a public health concern around the world with over 200 000 new cases in 2018. Most human leprosy cases are caused by , but a small number of cases are now known to be caused by , a sister taxon of . The global pattern of genomic variation in is not well defined. Particularly, in the Pacific Islands, the origins of leprosy are disputed. Historically, it has been argued that leprosy arrived on the islands during nineteenth century colonialism, but some oral traditions and palaeopathological evidence suggest an older introduction. To address this, as well as investigate patterns of pathogen exchange across the Pacific Islands, we extracted DNA from 39 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded biopsy blocks dating to 1992-2016. Using whole-genome enrichment and next-generation sequencing, we produced nine genomes dating to 1998-2015 and ranging from 4-63× depth of coverage. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that these strains belong to basal lineages within the phylogeny, specifically falling in branches 0 and 5. The phylogeographical patterning and evolutionary dating analysis of these strains support a pre-modern introduction of into the Pacific Islands. This article is part of the theme issue 'Insights into health and disease from ancient biomolecules'.
BT - Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences C1 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33012236 DA - 11/2020 DO - 10.1098/rstb.2019.0582 IS - 1812 J2 - Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci LA - eng N2 -As one of the oldest known human diseases, leprosy or Hansen's disease remains a public health concern around the world with over 200 000 new cases in 2018. Most human leprosy cases are caused by , but a small number of cases are now known to be caused by , a sister taxon of . The global pattern of genomic variation in is not well defined. Particularly, in the Pacific Islands, the origins of leprosy are disputed. Historically, it has been argued that leprosy arrived on the islands during nineteenth century colonialism, but some oral traditions and palaeopathological evidence suggest an older introduction. To address this, as well as investigate patterns of pathogen exchange across the Pacific Islands, we extracted DNA from 39 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded biopsy blocks dating to 1992-2016. Using whole-genome enrichment and next-generation sequencing, we produced nine genomes dating to 1998-2015 and ranging from 4-63× depth of coverage. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that these strains belong to basal lineages within the phylogeny, specifically falling in branches 0 and 5. The phylogeographical patterning and evolutionary dating analysis of these strains support a pre-modern introduction of into the Pacific Islands. This article is part of the theme issue 'Insights into health and disease from ancient biomolecules'.
PY - 2020 EP - 20190582 T2 - Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences TI - Evolutionary history of Mycobacterium leprae in the Pacific Islands. UR - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstb.2019.0582 VL - 375 SN - 1471-2970 ER -