Introduction of one Treponema pallidum complex pathogen in naïve European populations following the Christopher Columbus troop return from Central America in 1493 is a central dogma in venereology.
Among 7th-8th century skeletal elements uncovered in Roquevaire, France, individual RS-1003 femur macroscopically suspected of having an infectious disease was investigated by paleo-autoimmunohistochemistry, direct metagenomics and paleoserology, along with one control femur of an apparently healthy individual (R-1003) and experimental negative controls.
RS-1003 femur showed infectious bone; paleo-autoimmunohistochemistry of the lesions led to microscopic detection of a T. pallidum complex pathogen. Phylogenetic analyses comprising 71 T. pallidum complex-specific reads covering 2.37% of the T. pallidum subsp. pallidum reference genome sequence revealed an ancestral T. pallidum complex pathogen in the lesion. Paleoserology detecting T. pallidum-specific antigens confirmed positive serology in individual RS-1003. Individual R-1003 and the negative controls remained negative.
This case, predating by eight centuries previous detections of T. pallidum complex treponematosis in Europe, indicated that European populations were not naïve to these pathogens before the 1493 introduction of a Central American T. pallidum complex pathogen overwhelming the T. pallidum ones previously circulating in the Old World. These data break a century-old dogma in medical microbiology.
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