PT Unknown AU Bonazzi, M TI A genomic study of Mycobacterium leprae in medieval Northern Europe PY 2017 PU Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel WP https://macau.uni-kiel.de/receive/diss_mods_00020460 LA en DE Ancient DNA; Mycobacterium; leprae; medieval; genomics AB Leprosy is an infectious disease mainly caused by the obligate intracellular pathogen Mycobacterium leprae (M. leprae). In Northern Europe, the disease reached its highest prevalence in the Middle-Ages, between the 11th and 15th centuries. It disappeared around the 16th century before the introduction of modern medicine. Besides archaeological and medical studies, the direct recovery and analysis of medieval M. leprae genomes can greatly improve our understanding of the history and epidemiology of the disease. This thesis aims to analyse numerous medieval M. leprae genomes from Northern Europe at high genomic coverage using next-generation sequencing. Teeth from 140 human skeletal remains were collected from three cemeteries in Denmark and Germany (1000-1560 AD) in order to 1) screen the remains for M. leprae DNA with PCR, 2) use high-throughput sequencing to recover high-quality M. leprae genomes, 3) place the recovered genomes within the M. leprae phylogeny, and 4) investigate in- silico the possible effects of the genomic variations. PI Kiel ER