The first human genome from Pompeii has been sequenced.
The first human genome to be successfully sequenced was from a person who passed unexpectedly in Pompeii, Italy, following Mount Vesuvius' eruption in the year 79 CE, according to research that was recently published in Scientific Reports. The mitochondrial DNA from Pompeiian human and animal remains has only been partially sequenced so far.
In the House of the Craftsman in Pompeii, two people's bones were found, and Gabriele Scorrano and associates studied and retrieved the DNA from those bones. The length, shape, and structure of the bones indicated that one pair belonged to a man who died between the ages of 35 and 40, and the other set belonged to a woman who was over 50. The authors were able to extract and analyse ancient DNA from both individuals, but they could only sequence the whole genome from the male's remains since the sequences from the female's bones had gaps in them.
It was discovered that the male subject's DNA was most similar to that of contemporary central Italians and other people who lived in Italy during the Roman Imperial era after 1,030 ancient and 471 modern western Eurasian subjects' DNAs were examined. Studies on the Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA of males, however, have identified gene sets that are frequently present in Sardinians but not in other populations who lived in Italy during the Roman Imperial era. This indicates that there may have been significant genetic variety at that period on the Italian Peninsula.
Additional skeleton and DNA examinations of the male subject revealed lesions in one of the vertebrae and DNA sequences typical of the genus Mycobacterium, which includes the tuberculosis-causing bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This implies that the person might have had tuberculosis before his death.
The pyroclastic materials that were released during the eruption may have provided protection from DNA-degrading environmental factors, such as atmospheric oxygen, according to the authors, who speculate that it may have been possible to successfully recover ancient DNA from the male individual's remains. The results show that it is possible to recover ancient DNA from Pompeiian human remains and give researchers more information about the genetic background and lifestyle of this population.
By Gabriele Scorrano, Serena Viva, Thomaz Pinotti, Pier Francesco Fabbri, Olga Rickards, and Fabio Macciardi, "Bioarchaeological and palaeogenomic portrait of two Pompeians that died during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD," Scientific Reports, 26 May 2022.
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