Reconstructing The Black Death Pathogen's Genome

The genome of the medieval form of Yersinia pestis, the pathogen responsible for the Black Death in Europe between 1347 – 1351, has been reconstructed. A surprising finding is that the genes affecting its virulence apparently haven’t changed all that much between then and now. A research team has used teeth gathered from a burial ground know to contain a lot of Black Death victims to reconstruct the genome of the medieval form of Y. pestis. After the genomic reconstruction, the researchers compared their ‘ancient pathogen’ to the extant forms of the bacterium (see figure 1). In their words: read more

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