A group of European researchers has managed to recover the genome of a pathogenic bacterium , Brucella melitensis , from a 700-year -old skeleton at the Geridu site, on the Italian island of Sardinia.
The experts took samples of nodules located in the pelvic area , usually associated with tuberculosis, but the analysis determined that the body, a middle-aged man, had actually suffered from brucellosis.
This infection, which affects humans and livestock, causes arthritis, fever, and inflammation of the heart and liver . The centuries-old strain of Brucella melitensis, named Geridu 1, is closely related to other modern ones, identified in 1961, 2006 and 2007.
To make this accurate diagnosis, a novel method called "shotgun metagenomics" was used , which allows DNA sequencing without a specific objective.
The scientists, who have already recovered genomes of the tuberculosis bacillus in human remains from 215 years ago, plan to repeat this type of analysis in Hungarian, Egyptian and Korean mummies or in the lung tissue of a Merovingian queen to shed light on the historical evolution of microbial diseases.
