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    17th Century Variola Virus Reveals the Recent History of Smallpox

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    Author
    Duggan, AT; Perdomo, MF; Piombino-Mascali, D; Marciniak, S; Poinar, D; Emery, MV; Buchmann, JP; Duchene, S; Jankauskas, R; Humphreys, M; ...
    Date
    2016-12-19
    Source Title
    Current Biology
    Publisher
    CELL PRESS
    University of Melbourne Author/s
    Duchene Garzon, Sebastian
    Affiliation
    Microbiology and Immunology
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Document Type
    Journal Article
    Citations
    Duggan, A. T., Perdomo, M. F., Piombino-Mascali, D., Marciniak, S., Poinar, D., Emery, M. V., Buchmann, J. P., Duchene, S., Jankauskas, R., Humphreys, M., Golding, G. B., Southon, J., Devault, A., Rouillard, J. -M., Sahl, J. W., Dutour, O., Hedman, K., Sajantila, A., Smith, G. L. ,... Poinar, H. N. (2016). 17th Century Variola Virus Reveals the Recent History of Smallpox. CURRENT BIOLOGY, 26 (24), pp.3407-3412. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.10.061.
    Access Status
    Open Access
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/11343/257908
    DOI
    10.1016/j.cub.2016.10.061
    Abstract
    Smallpox holds a unique position in the history of medicine. It was the first disease for which a vaccine was developed and remains the only human disease eradicated by vaccination. Although there have been claims of smallpox in Egypt, India, and China dating back millennia [1-4], the timescale of emergence of the causative agent, variola virus (VARV), and how it evolved in the context of increasingly widespread immunization, have proven controversial [4-9]. In particular, some molecular-clock-based studies have suggested that key events in VARV evolution only occurred during the last two centuries [4-6] and hence in apparent conflict with anecdotal historical reports, although it is difficult to distinguish smallpox from other pustular rashes by description alone. To address these issues, we captured, sequenced, and reconstructed a draft genome of an ancient strain of VARV, sampled from a Lithuanian child mummy dating between 1643 and 1665 and close to the time of several documented European epidemics [1, 2, 10]. When compared to vaccinia virus, this archival strain contained the same pattern of gene degradation as 20th century VARVs, indicating that such loss of gene function had occurred before ca. 1650. Strikingly, the mummy sequence fell basal to all currently sequenced strains of VARV on phylogenetic trees. Molecular-clock analyses revealed a strong clock-like structure and that the timescale of smallpox evolution is more recent than often supposed, with the diversification of major viral lineages only occurring within the 18th and 19th centuries, concomitant with the development of modern vaccination.

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