TY - JOUR
T1 - Ancient DNA confirmation of lepromatous leprosy in a skeleton with concurrent osteosarcoma, excavated from the leprosarium of St. Mary Magdalen in Winchester, Hants., UK
AU - Dawson-Hobbis, Heidi
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors received no specific funding for this project, apart from funding from CBA Wessex for radiocarbon dating.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
Funding Information:
The authors received no specific funding for this project, apart from funding from CBA Wessex for radiocarbon dating.
Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Ross Turle, Curatorial Liaison Manager of Hampshire Cultural Trust (HCT) for granting permission to examine the skeletal material and Tom Minden, Superintendent Radiographer, of Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, for performing the CT scan. Finally, and not least, we remember our late friend and collaborator Professor Tony Waldron, who passed away in January 2021. Tony was an inspirational colleague and friend and greatly admired as a mentor by his students. He instigated research into this case and inspired many other collaborations in palaeopathology over the years.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2022/9/17
Y1 - 2022/9/17
N2 - To establish a biological profile and disease aetiologies for one of four burials recovered during a Time Team dig at the St. Mary Magdalen leprosarium, Winchester, UK in AD 2000. Osteological techniques were applied to estimate age at death, biological sex, stature and pathology. Visual assessment of the material was supplemented by radiographic examination. Evidence for leprosy DNA was sought using ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis. The remains are those of a male individual excavated from a west–east aligned grave. The skeleton shows signs of two pathologies. Remodelling of the rhino-maxillary area and degenerative changes to small bones of the feet and reactive bone on the distal lower limbs suggest a multibacillary form of leprosy, whereas the right tibia and fibula show the presence of a primary neoplasm identified as an osteosarcoma. The aDNA study confirmed presence of Mycobacterium leprae in several skeletal elements, and the strain was genotyped to the 3I lineage, one of two main SNP types present in mediaeval Britain and ancestral to extant strains in America. This is a rare documentation of leprosy in association with a primary neoplasm.
AB - To establish a biological profile and disease aetiologies for one of four burials recovered during a Time Team dig at the St. Mary Magdalen leprosarium, Winchester, UK in AD 2000. Osteological techniques were applied to estimate age at death, biological sex, stature and pathology. Visual assessment of the material was supplemented by radiographic examination. Evidence for leprosy DNA was sought using ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis. The remains are those of a male individual excavated from a west–east aligned grave. The skeleton shows signs of two pathologies. Remodelling of the rhino-maxillary area and degenerative changes to small bones of the feet and reactive bone on the distal lower limbs suggest a multibacillary form of leprosy, whereas the right tibia and fibula show the presence of a primary neoplasm identified as an osteosarcoma. The aDNA study confirmed presence of Mycobacterium leprae in several skeletal elements, and the strain was genotyped to the 3I lineage, one of two main SNP types present in mediaeval Britain and ancestral to extant strains in America. This is a rare documentation of leprosy in association with a primary neoplasm.
KW - Leprosy
KW - Hansen’s disease
KW - PCR
KW - Mediaeval
KW - Osteosarcoma
KW - M. leprae
KW - Genotyping
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85138219851&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/5e32da3e-c792-32f1-81cd-cad2d523fb01/
U2 - 10.1007/s10096-022-04494-5
DO - 10.1007/s10096-022-04494-5
M3 - Article
VL - 41
SP - 1295
EP - 1304
JO - European Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
JF - European Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
SN - 0934-9723
IS - 11
ER -