Molecular identification by "suicide PCR" of Yersinia pestis as the agent of medieval black death.

ABSTRACT: Medieval Black Death is believed to have killed up to one-third of the Western European population during the 14th century. It was identified as plague at this time, but recently the causative organism was debated because no definitive evidence has been obtained to confirm the role of Yersinia pestis as the agent of plague. We obtained the teeth of a child and two adults from a 14th century grave in France, disrupted them to obtain the pulp, and applied the new "suicide PCR" protocol in which the primers are used only once. There were no positive controls: Neither Yersinia nor Yersinia DNA were introduced in the laboratory. A negative result is followed by a new test using other primers; a positive result is followed by sequencing. The second and third primer pair used, coding for a part o

SUBMITTER: Raoult D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC18844 | biostudies-literature | 2000 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature