Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Human History have uncovered the mystery of the origin of the most dangerous disease of mankind – tuberculosis. As reported in the article, published in the journal Genome Biology, the most dangerous strain of the bacterium to humans, which infect an estimated third of the world’s population, appeared in the Neolithic period.
Scientists examined the petrification within the well-preserved lung tissue of 17th century Bishop Peder Winstrup – scars surrounded by a capsule of calcium salts, signaling tuberculosis. They were able to isolate DNA from Koch’s bacillus and reconstruct the genome. This allowed the year of the bishop’s death to be used as a starting point for determining when the pathogen emerged.
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