Plague. A terrible disease that claimed tens of millions of lives. The plague has accompanied our civilization since its inception. Throughout the history of mankind, several plague pandemics have happened, the most terrible of which is the plague of Justinian, which raged from the middle of the sixth century to the middle of the seventh century. Then the plague disappeared without a trace as suddenly as it appeared. And most recently, a group of scientists from Germany managed to "resurrect" Justinian's plague. But why?
The plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis , which has several dozens of pathogenic strains and, although at the moment the epidemic does not threaten us, according to the World Health Organization data, 1-2 thousand cases of plague are recorded annually. The most endemic areas are Madagascar, Congo and Peru.
So why, all the same, it was necessary to revive such a terrible bacterium? The fact is that the more genomes of the plague strains can be studied, the better, because it will help in the development of new methods of treatment that are more effective than the previous ones. A large number of genomes will allow time to notice the smallest changes in the pathogenic organism, which may affect the rate of spread of the disease caused by it.
The method by which it was possible to "resurrect" the bacterium is called "genome sequencing", that is, the restoration of the DNA nucleotide sequence. Skeletons from a recently discovered grave in southern Germany served as genetic material for scientists.
One of the authors of the scientific work, Michael Feldman from the Max Planck Institute for the Evolutionary Anthropology of the Society, said: “My work and the work of my colleagues will help you better understand the history and biology of the disease, develop effective treatment methods and protect humanity from serious pandemics in the future.”
The article is based on materials .
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