Rickettsia felis DNA recovered from a child who lived in southern Africa 2000 years ago

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Authors

Rifkin, R.F. (Riaan)
Vikram, Surendra
Alcorta, Jaime
Ramond, Jean-Baptiste
Cowan, Don A.
Jakobsson, Mattias
Schlebusch, Carina M.
Lombard, Marlize

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Nature Research

Abstract

The Stone Age record of South Africa provides some of the earliest evidence for the biological and cultural origins of Homo sapiens. While there is extensive genomic evidence for the selection of polymorphisms in response to pathogen-pressure in sub-Saharan Africa, e.g., the sickle cell trait which provides protection against malaria, there is inadequate direct human genomic evidence for ancient human-pathogen infection in the region. Here, we analysed shotgun metagenome libraries derived from the sequencing of a Later Stone Age hunter-gatherer child who lived near Ballito Bay, South Africa, c. 2000 years ago. This resulted in the identification of ancient DNA sequence reads homologous to Rickettsia felis, the causative agent of typhus-like flea-borne rickettsioses, and the reconstruction of an ancient R. felis genome.

Description

DATA AVAILABILITY : Raw reads from Ballito Bay A samples are available under the NCBI BioProject PRJEB22660. The R. felis BBayA mapped reads and the metagenome-assembled genome are available under the NCBI BioProject PRJNA930765. The NCBI WGS accession number is JAQQRK000000000.

Keywords

Bacteria, Evolutionary ecology, Rickettsia felis DNA, Ancient DNA sequence

Sustainable Development Goals

Citation

Rifkin, R.F., Vikram, S., Alcorta, J. et al. Rickettsia felis DNA recovered from a child who lived in southern Africa 2000 years ago. Communications Biology 6, 240 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-04582-y.