一项研究发现，所谓的“黑死病”——一种在1347年到1351年在欧洲肆虐的鼠疫——很可能是由一种目前已经灭绝的鼠疫耶尔森氏菌导致的。Hendrik Poinar及其同事在分析了从英国伦敦的East Smithfield大规模埋葬地点挖掘出的109个人类骨骼残骸的DNA之后，做出了这样的推断。
鼠疫耶尔森氏菌
Hendrik Poinar他们也研究了来自St. Nicholas Shambles（该地点早于中世纪黑死病瘟疫的发生）出土的10具人类残骸的DNA。在East Smithfield埋葬的人DNA里含有鼠疫耶尔森氏菌的基因，科研人员测出了它们的序列从而组成了古代病原体的最古老和最长的遗传信息集合。然而测出的遗传序列不同于其他已知版本的鼠疫耶尔森氏菌，这个结果表明造成黑死病的这种病原体很可能灭绝了。
由于现代鼠疫继续每年在全世界影响估计约2000人，Hendrik Poinar他们指出，这种疾病的更早期的形式可能为这种病原体的进化史提供线索，而且还可能揭示出它如何在黑死病流行期间导致了如此广泛的破坏。
生物探索推荐英文论文摘要：
Targeted enrichment of ancient pathogens yielding the pPCP1 plasmid of Yersinia pestis from victims of the Black Death
Abstract
Although investigations of medieval plague victims have identified Yersinia pestis as the putative etiologic agent of the pandemic, methodological limitations have prevented large-scale genomic investigations to evaluate changes in the pathogen's virulence over time. We screened over 100 skeletal remains from Black Death victims of the East Smithfield mass burial site (1348–1350, London, England). Recent methods of DNA enrichment coupled with high-throughput DNA sequencing subsequently permitted reconstruction of ten full human mitochondrial genomes (16 kb each) and the full pPCP1 (9.6 kb) virulence-associated plasmid at high coverage. Comparisons of molecular damage profiles between endogenous human and Y. pestis DNA confirmed its authenticity as an ancient pathogen, thus representing the longest contiguous genomic sequence for an ancient pathogen to date. Comparison of our reconstructed plasmid against modern Y. pestis shows identity with several isolates matching the Medievalis biovar; however, our chromosomal sequences indicate the victims were infected with a Y. pestis variant that has not been previously reported. Our data reveal that the Black Death in medieval Europe was caused by a variant of Y. pestis that may no longer exist, and genetic data carried on its pPCP1 plasmid were not responsible for the purported epidemiological differences between ancient and modern forms of Y. pestis infections.
生物探索推荐：
黑死病（black death）
翻案：黑死病的主要传播者不是老鼠
突变基因全力保护 揭秘欧洲黑死病幸存者真相
在欧洲黑死病推进了艾滋病毒免疫么？
（纪录片）改变欧洲的瘟疫：黑死病
遗传学分析鉴定出中世纪瘟疫病原菌
