Neolithic and Medieval virus genomes reveal complex evolution of Hepatitis B.

Krause-Kyora, Ben; Susat, Julian; Key, Felix M; Kühnert, Denise; Bosse, Esther; Immel, Alexander; Rinne, Christoph; Kornell, Sabin-Christin; Yepes, Diego; Franzenburg, Sören; Heyne, Henrike O; Meier, Thomas; Lösch, Sandra; Meller, Harald; Friederich, Susanne; Nicklisch, Nicole; Alt, Kurt W; Schreiber, Stefan; Tholey, Andreas; Herbig, Alexander; ... (2018). Neolithic and Medieval virus genomes reveal complex evolution of Hepatitis B. eLife, 7 eLife Sciences Publications 10.7554/eLife.36666

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The hepatitis B virus (HBV) is one of the most widespread human pathogens known today, yet its origin and evolutionary history are still unclear and controversial. Here, we report the analysis of three ancient HBV genomes recovered from human skeletons found at three different archaeological sites in Germany. We reconstructed two Neolithic and one medieval HBV genomes by assembly from shotgun DNA sequencing data. Additionally, we observed HBV-specific peptides using paleo-proteomics. Our results show that HBV circulates in the European population for at least 7000 years. The Neolithic HBV genomes show a high genomic similarity to each other. In a phylogenetic network, they do not group with any human-associated HBV genome and are most closely related to those infecting African non-human primates. These ancient virus forms appear to represent distinct lineages that have no close relatives today and possibly went extinct. Our results reveal the great potential of ancient DNA from human skeletons in order to study the long-time evolution of blood borne viruses.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

04 Faculty of Medicine > Service Sector > Institute of Legal Medicine
04 Faculty of Medicine > Service Sector > Institute of Legal Medicine > Anthropology

UniBE Contributor:

Lösch, Sandra

ISSN:

2050-084X

Publisher:

eLife Sciences Publications

Language:

English

Submitter:

Antoinette Angehrn

Date Deposited:

28 May 2018 14:56

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:14

Publisher DOI:

10.7554/eLife.36666

PubMed ID:

29745896

Uncontrolled Keywords:

evolutionary biology genomics

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.116537

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/116537

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