Studying ancient DNA allows us to retrace the evolutionary history of human pathogens, such as Mycobacterium leprae, the main causative agent of leprosy. Leprosy is one of the oldest recorded and most stigmatizing diseases in human history. The disease was prevalent in Europe until the 16th century and is still endemic in many countries with over 200,000 new cases reported annually. Previous worldwide studies on modern and European medieval M. leprae genomes revealed that they cluster into several distinct branches of which two were present in medieval Northwestern Europe. In this study, we analyzed 10 new medieval M. leprae genomes including the so far oldest M. leprae genome from one of the earliest known cases of leprosy in the United Kingdom-a skeleton from the Great Chesterford cemetery with a calibrated age of 415-545 C.E. This dataset provides a genetic time transect of M. leprae diversity in Europe over the past 1500 years. We find M. leprae strains from four distinct branches to be present in the Early Medieval Period, and strains from three different branches were detected within a single cemetery from the High Medieval Period. Altogether these findings suggest a higher genetic diversity of M. leprae strains in medieval Europe at various time points than previously assumed. The resulting more complex picture of the past phylogeography of leprosy in Europe impacts current phylogeographical models of M. leprae dissemination. It suggests alternative models for the past spread of leprosy such as a wide spread prevalence of strains from different branches in Eurasia already in Antiquity or maybe even an origin in Western Eurasia. Furthermore, these results highlight how studying ancient M. leprae strains improves understanding the history of leprosy worldwide.

• MeSH
• dějiny středověku MeSH
• DNA bakterií genetika   dějiny   MeSH
• fylogeneze MeSH
• fylogeografie MeSH
• genetická variace MeSH
• genom bakteriální MeSH
• interakce hostitele a patogenu genetika   MeSH
• jednonukleotidový polymorfismus MeSH
• lepra epidemiologie   dějiny   mikrobiologie   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• molekulární evoluce MeSH
• Mycobacterium leprae klasifikace   genetika   patogenita   MeSH
• Check Tag
• dějiny středověku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• historické články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Evropa epidemiologie   MeSH
• Názvy látek
• DNA bakterií MeSH

Leprosy was rare in Europe during the Roman period, yet its prevalence increased dramatically in medieval times. We examined human remains, with paleopathological lesions indicative of leprosy, dated to the 6th-11th century AD, from Central and Eastern Europe and Byzantine Anatolia. Analysis of ancient DNA and bacterial cell wall lipid biomarkers revealed Mycobacterium leprae in skeletal remains from 6th-8th century Northern Italy, 7th-11th century Hungary, 8th-9th century Austria, the Slavic Greater Moravian Empire of the 9th-10th century and 8th-10th century Byzantine samples from Northern Anatolia. These data were analyzed alongside findings published by others. M. leprae is an obligate human pathogen that has undergone an evolutionary bottleneck followed by clonal expansion. Therefore M. leprae genotypes and sub-genotypes give information about the human populations they have infected and their migration. Although data are limited, genotyping demonstrates that historical M. leprae from Byzantine Anatolia, Eastern and Central Europe resembles modern strains in Asia Minor rather than the recently characterized historical strains from North West Europe. The westward migration of peoples from Central Asia in the first millennium may have introduced different M. leprae strains into medieval Europe and certainly would have facilitated the spread of any existing leprosy. The subsequent decline of M. leprae in Europe may be due to increased host resistance. However, molecular evidence of historical leprosy and tuberculosis co-infections suggests that death from tuberculosis in leprosy patients was also a factor.

• Klíčová slova
• Ancient DNA, Genotyping, Human migrations, Lipid biomarkers, Mycobacterium leprae, Mycobacterium tuberculosis,
• MeSH
• dějiny středověku MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• genotyp MeSH
• lepra epidemiologie   dějiny   přenos   MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• migrace lidstva * MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• Mycobacterium leprae genetika   MeSH
• paleopatologie MeSH
• statistické modely * MeSH
• Check Tag
• dějiny středověku MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mladý dospělý MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• historické články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Evropa epidemiologie   MeSH

Serum samples were collected from eighty-three leprosy patients and twenty-five healthy controls supposedly not exposed to Mycobacterium leprae infection. Phenolic glycolipid-1 coated latex agglutination test (PGL-LAT) was carried out with the serum samples to detect antibodies specific to M. leprae. Samples showing positive agglutination were 50% in the lepromatous leprosy (LL) group showing no erythema nodosum leprosum (ENL) complications, 66.6% in LL group with ENL complication, 60% in borderline lepromatous (BL) group, 50% in borderline (BB) and 33.3% in borderline tuberculoid (BT). The patients belonging to the tuberculoid (TT) group and most of the long-term treated patients were interestingly negative, and so were sera from all the healthy controls. PGL-LAT developed by us therefore is specific and a fairly sensitive technique to detect antibodies specific to M. leprae and will be very useful in field conditions.

• MeSH
• aglutinační testy metody   MeSH
• antigeny bakteriální * MeSH
• glykolipidy * MeSH
• latex MeSH
• lepra krev   diagnóza   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mikrosféry MeSH
• Mycobacterium leprae imunologie   MeSH
• protilátky bakteriální imunologie   MeSH
• senzitivita a specificita MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH
• Názvy látek
• antigeny bakteriální * MeSH
• glykolipidy * MeSH
• latex MeSH
• phenolic glycolipid I, Mycobacterium leprae MeSH Prohlížeč
• protilátky bakteriální MeSH

Peritoneal macrophages from uninfected controls and Mycobacterium leprae infected Swiss albino mice were studied for their respiratory burst (RB) activity at different time intervals. The RB metabolic activity of macrophages declined significantly after 3 month infection using latex (p less than 0.001) and M. leprae (p less than 0.01) as stimuli. However, significant rise (p less than 0.001) in the oxidative metabolic activity was seen at 6 and 9 months postinfection period on stimulation with both the stimuli. The sharp rise in the oxidative metabolic status at peak period of infection in the experimental animals suggests that the macrophages are functionally normal though M. leprae is unable to trigger the respiratory burst sufficiently.

• MeSH
• fagocytóza imunologie   MeSH
• latex MeSH
• lepra imunologie   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• makrofágy imunologie   parazitologie   MeSH
• mikrosféry MeSH
• modely nemocí na zvířatech MeSH
• Mycobacterium leprae imunologie   MeSH
• myši MeSH
• peritoneální dutina MeSH
• respirační vzplanutí imunologie   MeSH
• zvířata MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• myši MeSH
• zvířata MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• Názvy látek
• latex MeSH

The lytic potency of a newly isolated phage Al-1 obtained from the laboratory strain M. leprae murium "Douglas" was examined. The phage was multiplied on the laboratory strain M. smegmatis ATCC 607 and for the lytic test 0.1 ml of suspension containing PFU 10(5) was used. In the whole 18 mycobacterial strains both slowly and fast growing multiplied in liquid Sula's medium were tested. For phage lytic tests two simple agar media and standard Redmond's medium RVA-24 were used. The examined slowly growing mycobacteria (H37Rv. M. bovis "Ravenel", M. avium "Kirchberg", M. kansasii "Svizenský", M. tbc INH resist., M. tbc INH, STM, PAS resist.) were resistant to the tested phage similarly as M. phlei from the group of fast growing strains. The results of phage tests on all three used media were characterized by a confluent phage lysis with the exception of the strain M. butyricum "Rabinovic", in which even on a very rich media an incomplete lysis with countable plaques was found out. The use of the phage Al-1 for the phage typification also of the strain M. leprae murium is considered on the basis of the inhibition growth tests on Ogawa's egg media.

• MeSH
• kultivační média MeSH
• Mycobacterium leprae izolace a purifikace   MeSH
• mykobakteriofágy metabolismus   MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• Názvy látek
• kultivační média MeSH

The colony microstructure of the laboratory strain Mycobacterium leprae murium "Douglas" cultivated on Ogawa's egg medium was examined. A bioptical sample from the liver of a white mouse subcutaneously infected and observed for ten months was used as inoculum. The inoculum contained 5.2 X 10(9) acidfast rods. The Ogawa's media were incubated in 5% atmosphere of CO2 at 33 degrees C to 37 degrees C for 6 to 10 months. The outgrown colonies were killed with a formol solution, then embedded into the agarparaffin and cut out with the aid of Reichert's microtom. In thin sections there was an apparent vacuolisation of colonies proving the presence of the temperate phage, which was isolated from the bacterial suspension inoculated on the host non lysogenic strain Mycobacterium smegmatis ATCC 607. On the simple agar medium N-4 the number of 2.4 X 10(9) living particles was achieved, which shows the possible use of this phage for differential diagnostic purposes in the taxonomy studies of mycobacteria.

• MeSH
• kultivační média MeSH
• Mycobacterium leprae izolace a purifikace   ultrastruktura   MeSH
• mykobakteriofágy izolace a purifikace   ultrastruktura   MeSH
• myši MeSH
• zvířata MeSH
• Check Tag
• myši MeSH
• zvířata MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• Názvy látek
• kultivační média MeSH

• Klíčová slova
• ANTIBODY FORMATION *, BCG VACCINATION *, BETA GLOBULIN *, BLOOD PROTEIN ELECTROPHORESIS *, BLOOD PROTEINS *, EXPERIMENTAL LAB STUDY *, GUINEA PIGS *, MYCOBACTERIUM LEPRAE *, SERUM GLOBULINS *, TUBERCULOSIS *, VACCINES *,
• MeSH
• BCG vakcína * MeSH
• beta-globuliny * MeSH
• elektroforéza sérových bílkovin * MeSH
• krevní proteiny * MeSH
• morčata MeSH
• Mycobacterium bovis * MeSH
• Mycobacterium leprae * MeSH
• sérové globuliny * MeSH
• tuberkulóza * MeSH
• tvorba protilátek * MeSH
• vakcinace * MeSH
• vakcíny * MeSH
• výzkum * MeSH
• zvířata MeSH
• Check Tag
• morčata MeSH
• zvířata MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• Názvy látek
• BCG vakcína * MeSH
• beta-globuliny * MeSH
• krevní proteiny * MeSH
• sérové globuliny * MeSH
• vakcíny * MeSH