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Diverse variola virus (smallpox) strains were widespread in northern Europe in the Viking Age - PubMed

️Wed Jan 01 2020

. 2020 Jul 24;369(6502):eaaw8977.

doi: 10.1126/science.aaw8977.

Barbara Mühlemann^#^{1

2

3}, Ashot Margaryan^{4

5}, Helene Wilhelmson^{6

7}, Constanza de la Fuente Castro⁸, Morten E Allentoft^{4

9}, Peter de Barros Damgaard⁴, Anders Johannes Hansen⁴, Sofie Holtsmark Nielsen⁴, Lisa Mariann Strand¹⁰, Jan Bill¹¹, Alexandra Buzhilova¹², Tamara Pushkina¹³, Ceri Falys¹⁴, Valeri Khartanovich¹⁵, Vyacheslav Moiseyev¹⁵, Marie Louise Schjellerup Jørkov¹⁶, Palle Østergaard Sørensen¹⁷, Yvonne Magnusson¹⁸, Ingrid Gustin⁶, Hannes Schroeder¹⁹, Gerd Sutter^{20

21}, Geoffrey L Smith²², Christian Drosten^{2

3}, Ron A M Fouchier²³, Derek J Smith¹, Eske Willerslev^{24

25

26

27}, Terry C Jones^{28

2

3}, Martin Sikora²⁴

Affiliations

PMID: 32703849
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaw8977

Diverse variola virus (smallpox) strains were widespread in northern Europe in the Viking Age

Barbara Mühlemann et al. Science. 2020.

Abstract

Smallpox, one of the most devastating human diseases, killed between 300 million and 500 million people in the 20th century alone. We recovered viral sequences from 13 northern European individuals, including 11 dated to ~600-1050 CE, overlapping the Viking Age, and reconstructed near-complete variola virus genomes for four of them. The samples predate the earliest confirmed smallpox cases by ~1000 years, and the sequences reveal a now-extinct sister clade of the modern variola viruses that were in circulation before the eradication of smallpox. We date the most recent common ancestor of variola virus to ~1700 years ago. Distinct patterns of gene inactivation in the four near-complete sequences show that different evolutionary paths of genotypic host adaptation resulted in variola viruses that circulated widely among humans.

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Comment in

Was smallpox a widespread mild disease?
Alcamí A. Alcamí A. Science. 2020 Jul 24;369(6502):376-377. doi: 10.1126/science.abd1214. Science. 2020. PMID: 32703866 No abstract available.

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