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BREAKING THE FABRIC OF HISTORY. “This tragedy launched a socioeconomic and evolutionary transformation in Europe that changed the course of history.” https://lnkd.in/gFp3nUn View in LinkedIn

BLAME GAME. “Others took the lead in persecuting strangers and minorities as well as those unfortunates who were perceived as witches. As though there was not enough death ready at hand, innocent people were slaughtered because somebody had to be blamed. Medieval medicine was not equal to the challenge of preventing or curing the plague, so there was a ready market for magic and superstition.” https://lnkd.in/giSpPWR View in LinkedIn

GENOME FINDINGS. “Our results suggest (1) limited Y. pestis diversity during the early phase of the Black Death, and likely a single entry into Europe; (2) a wave of plague that traveled eastward after the Black Death and later gave rise to the 19th century pandemic; and (3) an involvement of the same plague lineage in two post-Black Death European epidemics that are 200 years apart.” https://lnkd.in/g9Pgxuv View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE continues from last weekend on the topic of the Black Death. There has been a lengthy debate as to whether there was more than one strain of the plague, and where it came from and where it went to. By using genomic sequencing, on human samples, these issues have been finally and resolved, some 700 years later. It is a lovely tribute to the power of modern sequencing. View in LinkedIn

EASTERN SPREAD. “Y. pestis spread from Europe to Asia after the Black Death and gave rise to both the 1.IN lineages of the Yunnan Province of China (1.IN3) as well as the 1.ORI strains associated with worldwide spread during the third plague pandemic.” https://lnkd.in/g9Pgxuv View in LinkedIn

SINGLE UNIFORM WAVE. “Barcelona was one of the main entry points for the Black Death into Europe, with historical reports suggesting the disease first entered there in the spring of 1348. In London, the earliest reports of the illness are from autumn 1348. This indicates a contemporary presence of the same strain in both southern and northern Europe, supporting the notion of a single wave entry, with low genetic diversity in the pathogen.” https://lnkd.in/g9Pgxuv View in LinkedIn

SAME LINEAGE CONFIRMED. “Our genomes from Barcelona, Bolgar City, and Ellwangen group on the same phylogenetic branch (Branch 1), adding further legitimacy to the notion that the Black Death and subsequent plague outbreaks in Europe, as well as the worldwide third pandemic, were caused by the same Y. pestis lineage.” https://lnkd.in/g9Pgxuv View in LinkedIn

GENOME SEQUENCING. “Following the success of previous genomic investigations of ancient bacterial disease, we employ similar methods of DNA capture and high-throughput sequencing to retrieve the genomes of three historical Y. pestis strains.” https://lnkd.in/g9Pgxuv View in LinkedIn

PERSISTENCE. “Third, we take a further step toward understanding the relationship of post-Black Death outbreaks in Europe and evaluate the likelihood of a local reservoir.’ https://lnkd.in/g9Pgxuv View in LinkedIn

SPREAD. “Second, we evaluate the likelihood of the proposed eastward migration of strains from Europe to Asia after the Black Death through the analysis of human remains from a 14th century plague burial in the Volga region of Russia.” https://lnkd.in/g9Pgxuv View in LinkedIn