High Ancient Genetic Diversity of Human Lice, Pediculus humanus, from Israel Reveals New Insights into the Origin of Clade B Lice

The human head louse, Pediculus humanus capitis, is subdivided into several significantly divergent mitochondrial haplogroups, each with particular geographical distributions. Historically, they are among the oldest human parasites, representing an excellent marker for tracking older events in human...

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Main Authors:	Amanzougaghene, Nadia, Mumcuoglu, Kosta Y., Fenollar, Florence, Alfi, Shir, Yesilyurt, Gonca, Raoult, Didier, Mediannikov, Oleg
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2016
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5065229/

id	pubmed-5065229
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-50652292016-10-27 High Ancient Genetic Diversity of Human Lice, Pediculus humanus, from Israel Reveals New Insights into the Origin of Clade B Lice Amanzougaghene, Nadia Mumcuoglu, Kosta Y. Fenollar, Florence Alfi, Shir Yesilyurt, Gonca Raoult, Didier Mediannikov, Oleg Research Article The human head louse, Pediculus humanus capitis, is subdivided into several significantly divergent mitochondrial haplogroups, each with particular geographical distributions. Historically, they are among the oldest human parasites, representing an excellent marker for tracking older events in human evolutionary history. In this study, ancient DNA analysis using real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), combined with conventional PCR, was applied to the remains of twenty-four ancient head lice and their eggs from the Roman period which were recovered from Israel. The lice and eggs were found in three combs, one of which was recovered from archaeological excavations in the Hatzeva area of the Judean desert, and two of which found in Moa, in the Arava region, close to the Dead Sea. Results show that the head lice remains dating approximately to 2,000 years old have a cytb haplogroup A, which is worldwide in distribution, and haplogroup B, which has thus far only been found in contemporary lice from America, Europe, Australia and, most recently, Africa. More specifically, this haplogroup B has a B36 haplotype, the most common among B haplogroups, and has been present in America for at least 4,000 years. The present findings confirm that clade B lice existed, at least in the Middle East, prior to contacts between Native Americans and Europeans. These results support a Middle Eastern origin for clade B followed by its introduction into the New World with the early peoples. Lastly, the presence of Acinetobacter baumannii DNA was demonstrated by qPCR and sequencing in four head lice remains belonging to clade A. Public Library of Science 2016-10-14 /pmc/articles/PMC5065229/ /pubmed/27741281 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0164659 Text en © 2016 Amanzougaghene et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Amanzougaghene, Nadia Mumcuoglu, Kosta Y. Fenollar, Florence Alfi, Shir Yesilyurt, Gonca Raoult, Didier Mediannikov, Oleg
spellingShingle	Amanzougaghene, Nadia Mumcuoglu, Kosta Y. Fenollar, Florence Alfi, Shir Yesilyurt, Gonca Raoult, Didier Mediannikov, Oleg High Ancient Genetic Diversity of Human Lice, Pediculus humanus, from Israel Reveals New Insights into the Origin of Clade B Lice
author_facet	Amanzougaghene, Nadia Mumcuoglu, Kosta Y. Fenollar, Florence Alfi, Shir Yesilyurt, Gonca Raoult, Didier Mediannikov, Oleg
author_sort	Amanzougaghene, Nadia
title	High Ancient Genetic Diversity of Human Lice, Pediculus humanus, from Israel Reveals New Insights into the Origin of Clade B Lice
title_short	High Ancient Genetic Diversity of Human Lice, Pediculus humanus, from Israel Reveals New Insights into the Origin of Clade B Lice
title_full	High Ancient Genetic Diversity of Human Lice, Pediculus humanus, from Israel Reveals New Insights into the Origin of Clade B Lice
title_fullStr	High Ancient Genetic Diversity of Human Lice, Pediculus humanus, from Israel Reveals New Insights into the Origin of Clade B Lice
title_full_unstemmed	High Ancient Genetic Diversity of Human Lice, Pediculus humanus, from Israel Reveals New Insights into the Origin of Clade B Lice
title_sort	high ancient genetic diversity of human lice, pediculus humanus, from israel reveals new insights into the origin of clade b lice
description	The human head louse, Pediculus humanus capitis, is subdivided into several significantly divergent mitochondrial haplogroups, each with particular geographical distributions. Historically, they are among the oldest human parasites, representing an excellent marker for tracking older events in human evolutionary history. In this study, ancient DNA analysis using real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), combined with conventional PCR, was applied to the remains of twenty-four ancient head lice and their eggs from the Roman period which were recovered from Israel. The lice and eggs were found in three combs, one of which was recovered from archaeological excavations in the Hatzeva area of the Judean desert, and two of which found in Moa, in the Arava region, close to the Dead Sea. Results show that the head lice remains dating approximately to 2,000 years old have a cytb haplogroup A, which is worldwide in distribution, and haplogroup B, which has thus far only been found in contemporary lice from America, Europe, Australia and, most recently, Africa. More specifically, this haplogroup B has a B36 haplotype, the most common among B haplogroups, and has been present in America for at least 4,000 years. The present findings confirm that clade B lice existed, at least in the Middle East, prior to contacts between Native Americans and Europeans. These results support a Middle Eastern origin for clade B followed by its introduction into the New World with the early peoples. Lastly, the presence of Acinetobacter baumannii DNA was demonstrated by qPCR and sequencing in four head lice remains belonging to clade A.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2016
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5065229/
_version_	1613685318267961344

High Ancient Genetic Diversity of Human Lice, Pediculus humanus, from Israel Reveals New Insights into the Origin of Clade B Lice

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