A team of German and Canadian scientists have confirmed the bacterium that causes plague "Black Death" (The Black Death) which occurred about 600 years ago. Plague that causes a third of European citizens were killed in 1348-1353 it was the bacteria Yersinia pestis.
The death of 75 million Europeans are called the "Black Death" because of the victim's skin is blackened due to bleeding under the skin (subdermal). Having previously is still doubted by some quarters that the death caused by bacteria Yersinia pestis, scientists from the University of Tubingen Germany, and Canada's McMaster University has been able to confirm that Yersinia pestis was behind the outbreak of the well-known in history as the "Great Mortality" or the Great Mortality.
The results, as broadcast on the Science Daily, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. International team of researchers for the first time been able to decode the circular genome is important to explain the virulence or the degree of malignancy of bacteria Yersinia pestis. This is called pPCP1 plasmid and consists of about 10,000 positions in the DNA of bacteria.
Samples taken from the frame of a cemetery for plague victims in London, England. The working group in Tubingen led by Dr. Johannes Krause uses a new technique "fishing molecule" of the tooth enamel and sequencing using the latest technology.
In this way, the fragments are connected to the length genome sequence was identical to the bacterial pathogen causing the outbreak. "That suggests that at least this part of the genetic information that has barely changed in 600 years," said Krause.
The researchers were also able to show that DNA from the cemetery for plague victims in London are of medieval origin. To do that, they examined the damage to DNA that occurs only in old DNA.
"Without a doubt, the plague pathogen is known today as Yersinia pestis causes also in medieval plague," says Krause.
