A High-Coverage Yersinia pestis Genome from a Sixth-Century Justinianic Plague Victim

We report indels affecting a lacl family transcription regulator gene as well as nonsynonymous substitutions in the nrdE, fadJ, and pcp genes, that have been suggested as plague virulence determinants or have been shown to be upregulated in different models of plague infection. In addition, we identify 19 false positive substitutions in a previously published lower-coverage Y. pestis genome from another archaeological site of the same time period and geographical region that is otherwise genetically identical to the high-coverage genome sequence reported here, suggesting low-genetic diversity of the plague during the sixth century in rural southern Germany.

Source: Molecular Biology and Evolution - October 12, 2016 Category: Molecular Biology Authors: Feldman, M., Harbeck, M., Keller, M., Spyrou, M. A., Rott, A., Trautmann, B., Scholz, H. C., Päffgen, B., Peters, J., McCormick, M., Bos, K., Herbig, A., Krause, J. Tags: Discoveries Source Type: research