Plague Journal Club

The earliest documented plague pandemic in Europe, the Plague of Justinian, occurred in the 6th century. However, a recent study by Rasmussen et al. (2015) found plague in Eurasian individuals from the Bronze Age, suggesting that plague was in Europe before the first recorded pandemics. In this journal club, we will discuss a paper by Valtuena, et al. (2016) that presents additional prehistoric Y. pestis genomes.

Diseases can induce detectible genetic changes in host populations by exerting infectious pressure. It has been hypothesized that past plague pandemics have shaped susceptibility to infections in modern European populations. In this journal club, we will discuss immune pathways that have been shaped by convergent evolution in European and Rroma populations in response to plague and other infections.

The study of ancient DNA sequences from Yersinia pestis has yielded important insights into the ecology and evolution of this important human pathogen. However, the analysis and interpretation of ancient DNA data remains challenging compared with modern data. Here, we will discuss two recent papers with new or improved genomes from First and Second Pandemic victims.

No reading required! We will be watching a video lecture by Bruce M.S. Campbell, author of "The Great Transition: Climate, Disease, and Society in the Late-Medieval World," where he discusses how changes in climate, the economy, and warfare contributed to the onset and severity of plague epidemics in Medieval Europe.

This journal club we will be discussing conflicting studies on two virulence factors that are important for the Yersinia genus, invasin and YadA.

The recent emergence of plague, Yersinia pestis, as a flea-borne pathogen in the last 3,000-6,000 years provides a compelling example of how evolutionary changes can lead to a new bacterial pathogen. We will discuss the recent review, "Ecological opportunity, Evolution, and the Emergence of Flea-borne Plague," by Hinnebusch et. al., about Y. pestis and the closely related enteric pathogen, Y. psuedotuberculosis.