ArticleGenome biology2022
An invasive Haemophilus influenzae serotype b infection in an Anglo-Saxon plague victim.
Article in Genome biology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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23 citing papers in PubMed, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- 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
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- Pathogen detection in central nervous system infections: moving metagenomic sequencing closer to clinical practice.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Evidence of sheeppox in seventeenth-to nineteenth-century France: a multi-disciplinary investigation of a sheep mass mortality assemblage.Royal Society open science · 2026Article
- Recent Microbial Evolutionary Insights From Metagenomics.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Review
- Tracing 2500 years of human betaherpesvirus 6A and 6B diversity through ancient DNA.Science advances · 2026Article
- Ancient DNA insights into diverse pathogens and their hosts.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- Refining filtering criteria of Kraken family of tools for accurate taxonomic profiling of ancient metagenomic data.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Bone Adhered Sediments as a Source of Target and Environmental DNA and Proteins.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
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- Urbanization and genetic homogenization in the medieval Low Countries revealed through a ten-century paleogenomic study of the city of Sint-Truiden.Genome biology · 2025Article
- Development and performance evaluation of a clinical metagenomics approach for identifying pathogens in the whole blood from patients with undifferentiated fever.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2025Article
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- A novel capsular operon and potentially conjugative plasmids in extensively drug-resistant urogenitalFrontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- An 8000 years old genome reveals the Neolithic origin of the zoonosis Brucella melitensis.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Genetic history of Cambridgeshire before and after the Black Death.Science advances · 2024Article
- A Perilous Combination:Vector borne and zoonotic diseases (Larchmont, N.Y.) · 2023Review
- Human Archaeological Dentin as Source of Polar and Less Polar Metabolites for Untargeted Metabolomic Research: The Case ofMetabolites · 2023Article
- Ancient pathogens provide a window into health and well-being.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Historic and Prehistoric Epidemics: An Overview of Sources Available for the Study of Ancient Pathogens.Epidemiologia (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 7 institutions in 6 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe human pathogen Haemophilus influenzae was the main cause of bacterial meningitis in children and a major cause of worldwide infant mortality before the introduction of a vaccine in the 1980s. Although the occurrence of serotype b (Hib), the most virulent type of H. influenzae, has since decreased, reports of infections with other serotypes and non-typeable strains are on the rise. While non-typeable strains have been studied in-depth, very little is known of the pathogen's evolutionary history, and no genomes dating prior to 1940 were available.
resultsWe describe a Hib genome isolated from a 6-year-old Anglo-Saxon plague victim, from approximately 540 to 550 CE, Edix Hill, England, showing signs of invasive infection on its skeleton. We find that the genome clusters in phylogenetic division II with Hib strain NCTC8468, which also caused invasive disease. While the virulence profile of our genome was distinct, its genomic similarity to NCTC8468 points to mostly clonal evolution of the clade since the 6th century. We also reconstruct a partial Yersinia pestis genome, which is likely identical to a published first plague pandemic genome of Edix Hill.
conclusionsOur study presents the earliest genomic evidence for H. influenzae, points to the potential presence of larger genomic diversity in the phylogenetic division II serotype b clade in the past, and allows the first insights into the evolutionary history of this major human pathogen. The identification of both plague and Hib opens questions on the effect of plague in immunocompromised individuals already affected by infectious diseases.
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