A 5500-year-old <i>Treponema pallidum</i> genome from Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 41570125.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/science.adw3020.
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Abstract
Treponematosis, a bacterial infection caused by <i>Treponema pallidum</i> subspecies and <i>T. carateum</i> (yaws, bejel, syphilis, pinta), has afflicted humans for millennia. Despite paleopathological evidence and emerging genomic data, little is known about the evolutionary history of these pathogens. We report a 5500-year-old <i>Treponema</i> genome (TE1-3) from Middle Holocene hunter-gatherer contexts of the rock shelter Tequendama I in Colombia. Our analyses place TE1-3 as a sister lineage to all known <i>T. pallidum</i> subspecies, positioning this pathogen in the Americas millennia before European contact and before diversification of the subspecies causing syphilis, yaws, and bejel. This discovery broadens the known diversity of <i>T. pallidum</i> while extending the genomic record of treponemal pathogens by millennia, providing molecular support for a deep history of <i>T. pallidum</i> in the Americas.
Medical subject headings
- Genome, Bacterial
- Treponema pallidum
- Treponemal Infections