iScience (May 2023)

Improving the extraction of ancient Yersinia pestis genomes from the dental pulp

  • Pierre Clavel,
  • Lexane Louis,
  • Clio Der Sarkissian,
  • Catherine Thèves,
  • Claudia Gillet,
  • Lorelei Chauvey,
  • Gaétan Tressières,
  • Stéphanie Schiavinato,
  • Laure Calvière-Tonasso,
  • Norbert Telmon,
  • Benoît Clavel,
  • Richard Jonvel,
  • Stéfan Tzortzis,
  • Laetitia Bouniol,
  • Jean-Marc Fémolant,
  • Jennifer Klunk,
  • Hendrik Poinar,
  • Michel Signoli,
  • Caroline Costedoat,
  • Maria A. Spyrou,
  • Andaine Seguin-Orlando,
  • Ludovic Orlando

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 26, no. 5
p. 106787

Abstract

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Summary: Ancient DNA preserved in the dental pulp offers the opportunity to characterize the genome of some of the deadliest pathogens in human history. However, while DNA capture technologies help, focus sequencing efforts, and therefore, reduce experimental costs, the recovery of ancient pathogen DNA remains challenging. Here, we tracked the kinetics of ancient Yersinia pestis DNA release in solution during a pre-digestion of the dental pulp. We found that most of the ancient Y. pestis DNA is released within 60 min at 37°C in our experimental conditions. We recommend a simple pre-digestion as an economical procedure to obtain extracts enriched in ancient pathogen DNA, as longer digestion times release other types of templates, including host DNA. Combining this procedure with DNA capture, we characterized the genome sequences of 12 ancient Y. pestis bacteria from France dating to the second pandemic outbreaks of the 17th and 18th centuries Common Era.

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