Ancient hepatitis B viruses from the Bronze Age to the Medieval period.
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Authors
Mühlemann, Barbara
Jones, Terry C
Damgaard, Peter de Barros
Allentoft, Morten E
Shevnina, Irina
Logvin, Andrey
Usmanova, Emma
Panyushkina, Irina P
Boldgiv, Bazartseren
Bazartseren, Tsevel
Tashbaeva, Kadicha
Merz, Victor
Lau, Nina
Smrčka, Václav
Voyakin, Dmitry
Kitov, Egor
Epimakhov, Andrey
Pokutta, Dalia
Vicze, Magdolna
Price, T Douglas
Moiseyev, Vyacheslav
Hansen, Anders J
Orlando, Ludovic
Rasmussen, Simon
Sikora, Martin
Vinner, Lasse
Osterhaus, Albert DME
Smith, Derek J
Glebe, Dieter
Fouchier, Ron AM
Drosten, Christian
Sjögren, Karl-Göran
Kristiansen, Kristian
Publication Date
2018-05Journal Title
Nature
ISSN
0028-0836
Publisher
Springer Nature
Volume
557
Issue
7705
Pages
418-423
Language
eng
Type
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Mühlemann, B., Jones, T. C., Damgaard, P. d. B., Allentoft, M. E., Shevnina, I., Logvin, A., Usmanova, E., et al. (2018). Ancient hepatitis B viruses from the Bronze Age to the Medieval period.. Nature, 557 (7705), 418-423. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0097-z
Abstract
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major cause of human hepatitis. There is considerable uncertainty about the timescale of its evolution and its association with humans. Here we present 12 full or partial ancient HBV genomes that are between approximately 0.8 and 4.5 thousand years old. The ancient sequences group either within or in a sister relationship with extant human or other ape HBV clades. Generally, the genome properties follow those of modern HBV. The root of the HBV tree is projected to between 8.6 and 20.9 thousand years ago, and we estimate a substitution rate of 8.04 × 10-6-1.51 × 10-5 nucleotide substitutions per site per year. In several cases, the geographical locations of the ancient genotypes do not match present-day distributions. Genotypes that today are typical of Africa and Asia, and a subgenotype from India, are shown to have an early Eurasian presence. The geographical and temporal patterns that we observe in ancient and modern HBV genotypes are compatible with well-documented human migrations during the Bronze and Iron Ages1,2. We provide evidence for the creation of HBV genotype A via recombination, and for a long-term association of modern HBV genotypes with humans, including the discovery of a human genotype that is now extinct. These data expose a complexity of HBV evolution that is not evident when considering modern sequences alone.
Sponsorship
This work was supported by: The Danish National Research Foundation, The Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation (The Genome Denmark platform, grant 019-2011-2), The Villum Kann Rasmussen Foundation, KU2016, European Union FP7 programme ANTIGONE (grant agreement No. 278976), European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programmes, COMPARE (grant agreement No. 643476),VIROGENESIS (grant agreement No. 634650). The National Reference Center for Hepatitis B and D Viruses is supported by the German Ministry of Health via the Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany. BB was supported by Taylor Famil-Asia Foundation Endowed Chair in Ecology and Conservation Biology.
Funder references
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) Societal Challenges (643476)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0097-z
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/279735
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