Metagenomic analysis of a blood stain from the French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793).
Ancient DNA
Infection
Metagenomics
Journal
Infection, genetics and evolution : journal of molecular epidemiology and evolutionary genetics in infectious diseases
ISSN: 1567-7257
Titre abrégé: Infect Genet Evol
Pays: Netherlands
ID NLM: 101084138
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
06 2020
06 2020
Historique:
received:
08
11
2019
revised:
24
01
2020
accepted:
26
01
2020
pubmed:
1
2
2020
medline:
17
6
2021
entrez:
1
2
2020
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
The French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793) was assassinated in 1793 in his bathtub, where he was trying to find relief from the debilitating skin disease he was suffering from. At the time of his death, Marat was annotating newspapers, which got stained with his blood and were subsequently preserved by his sister. We extracted and sequenced DNA from the blood stain and also from another section of the newspaper, which we used for comparison. Results from the human DNA sequence analyses were compatible with a heterogeneous ancestry of Marat, with his mother being of French origin and his father born in Sardinia. Metagenomic analyses of the non-human reads uncovered the presence of fungal, bacterial and low levels of viral DNA. Relying on the presence/absence of microbial species in the samples, we could cast doubt on several putative infectious agents that have been previously hypothesised as the cause of his condition but for which we detect not a single sequencing read. Conversely, some of the species we detect are uncommon as environmental contaminants and may represent plausible infective agents. Based on all the available evidence, we hypothesize that Marat may have suffered from a fungal infection (seborrheic dermatitis), possibly superinfected with bacterial opportunistic pathogens.
Identifiants
pubmed: 32004756
pii: S1567-1348(20)30041-1
doi: 10.1016/j.meegid.2020.104209
pmc: PMC7615110
mid: EMS187490
pii:
doi:
Substances chimiques
DNA, Mitochondrial
0
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
104209Subventions
Organisme : Wellcome Trust
ID : 206478/Z/17/Z
Pays : United Kingdom
Organisme : Wellcome Trust
ID : 206478
Pays : United Kingdom
Organisme : Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
ID : BB/R01356X/1
Pays : United Kingdom
Organisme : Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Pays : United States
Organisme : NIMH NIH HHS
ID : U01 MH106874
Pays : United States
Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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