Variola virus genome sequenced from an eighteenth-century museum specimen supports the recent origin of smallpox.

ABSTRACT: Smallpox, caused by the variola virus (VARV), was a highly virulent disease with high mortality rates causing a major threat for global human health until its successful eradication in 1980. Despite previously published historic and modern VARV genomes, its past dissemination and diversity remain debated. To understand the evolutionary history of VARV with respect to historic and modern VARV genetic variation in Europe, we sequenced a VARV genome from a well-described eighteenth-century case from England (specimen P328). In our phylogenetic analysis, the new genome falls between the modern strains and another historic strain from Lithuania, supporting previous claims of larger diversity in early modern Europe compared to the twentieth century. Our analyses also resolve a previous controver

SUBMITTER: Ferrari G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7702794 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature