Ancient Borrelia genomes document the evolutionary history of louse-borne relapsing fever

Swali, P, Booth, T, Tan, CCS, McCabe, J, Anastasiadou, K, Barrington, C, Borrini, M, Bricking, A, Buckberry, J, Büster, L, Carlin, R, Gilardet, A, Glocke, I, Irish, JD, Kelly, M, King, M, Petchey, F, Peto, J, Silva, M, Speidel, L et al (2025) Ancient Borrelia genomes document the evolutionary history of louse-borne relapsing fever. Science, 388 (6749). ISSN 0036-8075

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Abstract

Several bacterial pathogens have transitioned from tick-borne to louse-borne transmission, which often involves genome reduction and increasing virulence. However, the timing of such transitions remains unclear. We sequenced four ancient Borrelia recurrentis genomes, the agent of louse-borne relapsing fever, dating from 2300 to 600 years ago. We estimated the divergence from its closest tick-borne relative to 6000 to 4000 years ago, which suggests an emergence coinciding with human lifestyle changes such as the advent of wool-based textiles. Pan-genome analysis indicated that much of the evolution characteristic of B. recurrentis had occurred by ~2300 years ago, though further gene turnover, particularly in plasmid partitioning, persisted until ~1000 years ago. Our findings provide a direct genomic chronology of the evolution of this specialized vector-borne pathogen.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science on volume 388 22nd May 2025, DOI: 10.1126/science.adr2147.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Animals; Humans; Borrelia; Relapsing Fever; Evolution, Molecular; Phylogeny; Genome, Bacterial; Biological Evolution; 31 Biological Sciences; 3105 Genetics; Biodefense; Genetics; Vector-Borne Diseases; Human Genome; Tickborne Diseases; Infectious Diseases; Emerging Infectious Diseases; 3 Good Health and Well Being; Borrelia; Relapsing Fever; Genome, Bacterial; Animals; Evolution, Molecular; Humans; Phylogeny; Biological Evolution; General Science & Technology
Subjects:	Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology
Divisions:	Biological and Environmental Sciences (from Sep 19)
Publisher:	American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date of acceptance:	6 March 2025
Date of first compliant Open Access:	29 May 2025
Date Deposited:	29 May 2025 13:32
Last Modified:	29 May 2025 13:45
DOI or ID number:	10.1126/science.adr2147
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/26462

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