Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a major cause of human hepatitis. There is considerable uncertainty about the timescale of its evolution and its association with humans. Here we present 12 full or partial ancient HBV genomes that are between approximately 0.8 and 4.5 thousand years old. The ancient sequences group either within or in a sister relationship with extant human or other ape HBV clades. Generally, the genome properties follow those of modern HBV. The root of the HBV tree is projected to between 8.6 and 20.9 thousand years ago, and we estimate a substitution rate of 8.04 × 10-6-1.51 × 10-5 nucleotide substitutions per site per year. In several cases, the geographical locations of the ancient genotypes do not match present-day distributions. Genotypes that today are typical of Africa and Asia, and a subgenotype from India, are shown to have an early Eurasian presence. The geographical and temporal patterns that we observe in ancient and modern HBV genotypes are compatible with well-documented human migrations during the Bronze and Iron Ages1,2. We provide evidence for the creation of HBV genotype A via recombination, and for a long-term association of modern HBV genotypes with humans, including the discovery of a human genotype that is now extinct. These data expose a complexity of HBV evolution that is not evident when considering modern sequences alone.

Archaeological Laboratory Faculty of History and Law A A Baitursynov Kostanay State University Kostanay Kazakhstan

Cambridge GeoGenetics Group Department of Zoology University of Cambridge Cambridge UK

Center for Pathogen Evolution Department of Zoology University of Cambridge Cambridge UK

Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology Schleswig Germany

Centre for GeoGenetics Natural History Museum University of Copenhagen Copenhagen Denmark

Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies Stockholm University Stockholm Sweden

Department of Bio and Health Informatics Technical University of Denmark Kongens Lyngby Denmark

Department of Biology School of Arts and Sciences National University of Mongolia Ulaanbaatar Mongolia

Department of Historical Studies University of Gothenburg Gothenburg Sweden

Department of Physical Anthropology Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography Saint Petersburg Russia

Department of Viroscience Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam The Netherlands

German Center for Infection Research Braunschweig Germany

Institute for History of Medicine and Foreign Languages of the 1st Faculty of Medicine Charles University Prague Czech Republic

Institute of Medical Virology Justus Liebig University of Giessen Giessen Germany

Institute of Virology Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin Berlin Germany

Laboratoire d'Anthropobiologie Moléculaire et d'Imagerie de Synthèse CNRS UMR 5288 Université de Toulouse Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse France

Laboratory of Tree Ring Research University of Arizona Tucson AZ USA

Laboratory of Virology Institute of Veterinary Medicine Mongolian University of Life Sciences Ulaanbaatar Mongolia

Margulan Institute of Archaeology Almaty Kazakhstan

Matrica Museum Százhalombatta Hungary

N N Miklouho Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology Russian Academy of Sciences Moscow Russia

National Academy of Sciences Bishkek Kyrgyzstan

National Reference Centre for Hepatitis B and D Viruses German Center for Infection Research Giessen Germany

Pavlodar State University Pavlodar Kazakhstan

Research Center for Emerging Infections and Zoonoses University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover Hannover Germany

Saryarka Archaeological Institute Karaganda State University Karaganda Kazakhstan

South Ural Department Institute of History and Archaeology UBRAS South Ural State University Chelyabinsk Russia

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Hinxton UK

Nature. 2018 Oct;562(7726):E4. doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0406-6. PubMed

Citace poskytuje Crossref.org

Ancient human parvovirus B19 in Eurasia reveals its long-term association with humans