Health & Medicine
Smallpox Is Back; Scientists Hunt Down History Of Smallpox Origin
Tripti
First Posted: Dec 09, 2016 05:09 AM EST
Scientists at the University of Sydney conducted a pathogenic research on the remains of a 17th century mummified boy. They managed to successfully sequence the complete genome of the variola virus or the smallpox virus.
The obtained sequence was then compared with the smallpox virus sequence of strains collected during the 1940 to 1970 period. This smallpox viral strain has been eradicated from the Earth after a universal vaccination campaign in the 1970s. The test samples of this virus remains locked up in freezers at subzero temperatures.
The study revealed that sequence of the mummified virus is slightly different from the one prevalent in 20th century, which indicated that the 17th century small pox virus was not the ancestor of the 20th century smallpox virus, reported NPR.
The sample used for analysis was obtained from the mummy with permission, from the church in Vilnius, Lithuania. Radiocarbon dating was used to estimate the exact age of the mummy, and it was found that the boy died somewhere in the mid 17th century.
The results obtained after DNA analysis show that the smallpox virus has a much recent evolutionary origin, contrary to what was believed earlier that it originated thousands of years ago. Dr Edward Holmes, University of Sydney told BBC that, ''This fossil tells us that in fact evolutionary history is much more recent than we thought before - it's actually only hundreds of years rather than thousands of years.''
Still the exact ancestral line of origin of the smallpox virus and when it appeared first in human cannot be confirmed yet, Holmes added. The common ancestor of different smallpox viral strains studied yet, dates back somewhere in 1588 to 1645. Experts say that these dates are co-incident with the first major outbreak of smallpox ever recorded.
Paul Keim, paleontologist in Northern Arizona University, commented that the recent findings cannot be used to draw conclusions since only one mummy was studied in this analysis. Keim said that, "All we can really say is that the smallpox that was trafficking around the world at the end of its existence [in the 1970s] can be traced back to the 17th century."
Keim added, "There were other models out there that were arguing that contemporary strains had gone back thousands of years, and that doesn't look like the case." Therefore, further analysis of fossilized samples containing smallpox virus may help in decoding the ancestral history of smallpox virus.
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First Posted: Dec 09, 2016 05:09 AM EST
Scientists at the University of Sydney conducted a pathogenic research on the remains of a 17th century mummified boy. They managed to successfully sequence the complete genome of the variola virus or the smallpox virus.
The obtained sequence was then compared with the smallpox virus sequence of strains collected during the 1940 to 1970 period. This smallpox viral strain has been eradicated from the Earth after a universal vaccination campaign in the 1970s. The test samples of this virus remains locked up in freezers at subzero temperatures.
The study revealed that sequence of the mummified virus is slightly different from the one prevalent in 20th century, which indicated that the 17th century small pox virus was not the ancestor of the 20th century smallpox virus, reported NPR.
The sample used for analysis was obtained from the mummy with permission, from the church in Vilnius, Lithuania. Radiocarbon dating was used to estimate the exact age of the mummy, and it was found that the boy died somewhere in the mid 17th century.
The results obtained after DNA analysis show that the smallpox virus has a much recent evolutionary origin, contrary to what was believed earlier that it originated thousands of years ago. Dr Edward Holmes, University of Sydney told BBC that, ''This fossil tells us that in fact evolutionary history is much more recent than we thought before - it's actually only hundreds of years rather than thousands of years.''
Still the exact ancestral line of origin of the smallpox virus and when it appeared first in human cannot be confirmed yet, Holmes added. The common ancestor of different smallpox viral strains studied yet, dates back somewhere in 1588 to 1645. Experts say that these dates are co-incident with the first major outbreak of smallpox ever recorded.
Paul Keim, paleontologist in Northern Arizona University, commented that the recent findings cannot be used to draw conclusions since only one mummy was studied in this analysis. Keim said that, "All we can really say is that the smallpox that was trafficking around the world at the end of its existence [in the 1970s] can be traced back to the 17th century."
Keim added, "There were other models out there that were arguing that contemporary strains had gone back thousands of years, and that doesn't look like the case." Therefore, further analysis of fossilized samples containing smallpox virus may help in decoding the ancestral history of smallpox virus.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone