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The DOI matches its Crossref record; 9 of the 9 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Early Divergent Strains of Yersinia pestis in Eurasia 5,000 Years Ago

Open access
Rasmussen, Simon, Allentoft, Morten Erik, Nielsen, Kasper, Orlando, Ludovic, Sikora, Martin, Sjögren, Karl-Göran, Pedersen, Anders Gorm, Schubert, Mikkel, Van Dam, Alex, Kapel, Christian Moliin Outzen, Nielsen, Henrik Bjørn, Brunak, Søren, Avetisyan, Pavel, Epimakhov, Andrey, Khalyapin, Mikhail Viktorovich, Gnuni, Artak, Kriiska, Aivar, Lasak, Irena, Metspalu, Mait, Moiseyev, Vyacheslav, Gromov, Andrei, Pokutta, Dalia, Saag, Lehti, Varul, Liivi, Yepiskoposyan, Levon, Sicheritz-Pontén, Thomas, Foley, Robert A., Lahr, Marta Mirazón, Nielsen, Rasmus, Kristiansen, Kristian, Willerslev, Eske·2015·Cell

Abstract

The bacteria Yersinia pestis is the etiological agent of plague and has caused human pandemics with millions of deaths in historic times. How and when it originated remains contentious. Here, we report the oldest direct evidence of Yersinia pestis identified by ancient DNA in human teeth from Asia and Europe dating from 2,800 to 5,000 years ago. By sequencing the genomes, we find that these ancient plague strains are basal to all known Yersinia pestis. We find the origins of the Yersinia pestis lineage to be at least two times older than previous estimates. We also identify a temporal sequence of genetic changes that lead to increased virulence and the emergence of the bubonic plague. Our results show that plague infection was endemic in the human populations of Eurasia at least 3,000 years before any historical recordings of pandemics.

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Metadata

Authors
Rasmussen, S., Allentoft, M. E., Nielsen, K., Orlando, L., Sikora, M., Sjögren, K.-G., Pedersen, A. G., Schubert, M., Van Dam, A., Kapel, C. M. O., Nielsen, H. B., Brunak, S., Avetisyan, P., Epimakhov, A., Khalyapin, M. V., Gnuni, A., Kriiska, A., Lasak, I., Metspalu, M., Moiseyev, V., Gromov, A., Pokutta, D., Saag, L., Varul, L., Yepiskoposyan, L., Sicheritz-Pontén, T., Foley, R. A., Lahr, M. M., Nielsen, R., Kristiansen, K., & Willerslev, E.
Venue
Cell
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2015-10
Volume
163
Issue
3
Pages
571-582
ISSN
0092-8674 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2114418658
Cited by
568
References
9
FWCI
35.57
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
hybrid

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Early Divergent Strains of Yersinia pestis in Eurasia 5,000 Years Ago. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1016/j.cell.2015.10.009
The paper
Rasmussen, S., Allentoft, M. E., Nielsen, K., Orlando, L., Sikora, M., Sjögren, K.-G., Pedersen, A. G., Schubert, M., Van Dam, A., Kapel, C. M. O., Nielsen, H. B., Brunak, S., Avetisyan, P., Epimakhov, A., Khalyapin, M. V., Gnuni, A., Kriiska, A., Lasak, I., Metspalu, M., . . . Willerslev, E. (2015). Early Divergent Strains of Yersinia pestis in Eurasia 5,000 Years Ago. Cell. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2015.10.009

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.