ArticleScientific reports2020
Yersinia pestis strains from Latvia show depletion of the pla virulence gene at the end of the second plague pandemic.
Article in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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20 citing papers in PubMed, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- Ancient DNA and Human Physiology.Physiology (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Review
- A refined phylochronology of the second plague pandemic in Western Eurasia.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Insights into infectious diseases through ancient pathogen genomics.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Evolutionary trends of plague research from 2016 to 2025: A bibliometric analysis.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2026Article
- Ancient DNA insights into diverse pathogens and their hosts.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- The outcasts, the sick, and the undead: atypical burials of the late medieval to modern greater Poland.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Admixture as a source for HLA variation in Neolithic European farming communities.Genome biology · 2025Article
- Neolithic Yersinia pestis infections in humans and a dog.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Differential pathogenicity and lethality of bubonic plague (1720-1945) by sex, age and place.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Paleomicrobiology: Tracking the past microbial life from single species to entire microbial communities.Microbial biotechnology · 2024Review
- A melting pot of Roman dogs north of the Alps with high phenotypic and genetic diversity and similar diets.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Ancient Clostridium DNA and variants of tetanus neurotoxins associated with human archaeological remains.Nature communications · 2023Article
- AncientProceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Applications of polymerase chain reaction-based methods for the diagnosis of plague (Review).Experimental and therapeutic medicine · 2022Review
- Origin, transmission, and evolution of plague over 400 y in Europe.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Assessing the origins of the European Plagues following the Black Death: A synthesis of genomic, historical, and ecological information.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Mass burial genomics reveals outbreak of enteric paratyphoid fever in the Late Medieval trade city Lübeck.iScience · 2021Article
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7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Ancient genomic studies have identified Yersinia pestis (Y. pestis) as the causative agent of the second plague pandemic (fourteenth-eighteenth century) that started with the Black Death (1,347-1,353). Most of the Y. pestis strains investigated from this pandemic have been isolated from western Europe, and not much is known about the diversity and microevolution of this bacterium in eastern European countries. In this study, we investigated human remains excavated from two cemeteries in Riga (Latvia). Historical evidence suggests that the burials were a consequence of plague outbreaks during the seventeenth century. DNA was extracted from teeth of 16 individuals and subjected to shotgun sequencing. Analysis of the metagenomic data revealed the presence of Y. pestis sequences in four remains, confirming that the buried individuals were victims of plague. In two samples, Y. pestis DNA coverage was sufficient for genome reconstruction. Subsequent phylogenetic analysis showed that the Riga strains fell within the diversity of the already known post-Black Death genomes. Interestingly, the two Latvian isolates did not cluster together. Moreover, we detected a drop in coverage of the pPCP1 plasmid region containing the pla gene. Further analysis indicated the presence of two pPCP1 plasmids, one with and one without the pla gene region, and only one bacterial chromosome, indicating that the same bacterium carried two distinct pPCP1 plasmids. In addition, we found the same pattern in the majority of previously published post-Black Death strains, but not in the Black Death strains. The pla gene is an important virulence factor for the infection of and transmission in humans. Thus, the spread of pla-depleted strains may, among other causes, have contributed to the disappearance of the second plague pandemic in eighteenth century Europe.
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