Swali, Pooja, Booth, Thomas, Tan, Cedric C. S., McCabe, Jesse, Anastasiadou, Kyriaki, Barrington, Christopher, Borrini, Matteo, Bricking, Adelle, Buckberry, Jo, Buster, Lindsey, Carlin, Rea, Gilardet, Alexandre, Glocke, Isabelle, Irish, Joel D., Kelly, Monica, King, Megan, Petchey, Fiona, Peto, Jessica, Soares Da Silva, Monica, Spiedel, Leo, Tait, Frankie, Teoaca, Adelina, Valoriani, Satu, Williams, Mia, Madgwick, Richard  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4396-3566, Mullan, Graham, Wilson, Linda, Cootes, Kevin, Armit, Ian, Gutierrez, Maximiliano G., van Dorp, Lucy and Skoglund, Pontus
2025.
Ancient Borrelia genomes document the evolutionary history of louse-borne relapsing fever.
Science
388
(6749)
, pp. 836-848.
10.1126/science.adr2147
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Abstract
Several bacterial pathogens have transitioned from tick-borne to louse-borne transmission, which often involves genome reduction and increasing virulence. However, the timing of such transitions remains unclear. We sequenced four ancient Borrelia recurrentis genomes, the agent of louse-borne relapsing fever, dating from 2300 to 600 years ago. We estimated the divergence from its closest tick-borne relative to 6000 to 4000 years ago, which suggests an emergence coinciding with human lifestyle changes such as the advent of wool-based textiles. Pan-genome analysis indicated that much of the evolution characteristic of B. recurrentis had occurred by ~2300 years ago, though further gene turnover, particularly in plasmid partitioning, persisted until ~1000 years ago. Our findings provide a direct genomic chronology of the evolution of this specialized vector-borne pathogen.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > History, Archaeology and Religion |
| Subjects: | C Auxiliary Sciences of History > CC Archaeology |
| Publisher: | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
| ISSN: | 0036-8075 |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 14 July 2025 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 6 March 2025 |
| Last Modified: | 14 Jul 2025 11:30 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/178504 |
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