Ancient Genomes From Bronze Age Remains Reveal Deep Diversity and Recent Adaptive Episodes for Human Oral Pathobionts.

ABSTRACT: Ancient microbial genomes can illuminate pathobiont evolution across millenia, with teeth providing a rich substrate. However, the characterization of prehistoric oral pathobiont diversity is limited. In Europe, only preagricultural genomes have been subject to phylogenetic analysis, with none compared to more recent archaeological periods. Here, we report well-preserved microbiomes from two 4,000-year-old teeth from an Irish limestone cave. These contained bacteria implicated in periodontitis, as well as Streptococcus mutans, the major cause of caries and rare in the ancient genomic record. Despite deriving from the same individual, these teeth produced divergent Tannerella forsythia genomes, indicating higher levels of strain diversity in prehistoric populations. We find evidence of micr

SUBMITTER: Jackson I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10966897 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature