Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1994 Mar 15;91(6):2091–2094. doi: 10.1073/pnas.91.6.2091

Identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA in a pre-Columbian Peruvian mummy.

W L Salo 1, A C Aufderheide 1, J Buikstra 1, T A Holcomb 1
PMCID: PMC43315  PMID: 8134354

Abstract

The existence of tuberculosis in the pre-Columbian Americas is controversial because the morphology of the lesion is not specific, the organism is culturally nonviable in ancient tissues, and nonpathogenic soil mycobacteria can contaminate buried bodies. We report the recovery of DNA unique to Mycobacterium tuberculosis from a lung lesion of a spontaneously mummified, 1000-year-old adult female body in southern Peru. This provides the most specific evidence possible for the pre-Columbian presence of human tuberculosis in the New World.

Full text

PDF
2091

Images in this article

2092Image
on p.2092
2092Image
on p.2092
2093Image
on p.2093
2093Image
on p.2093
2093Image
on p.2093
2094Image
on p.2094

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Allison M. J., Mendoza D., Pezzia A. Documentation of a case of tuberculosis in Pre-Columbian America. Am Rev Respir Dis. 1973 Jun;107(6):985–991. doi: 10.1164/arrd.1973.107.6.985. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. DeSalle R., Gatesy J., Wheeler W., Grimaldi D. DNA sequences from a fossil termite in Oligo-Miocene amber and their phylogenetic implications. Science. 1992 Sep 25;257(5078):1933–1936. doi: 10.1126/science.1411508. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Eisenach K. D., Cave M. D., Bates J. H., Crawford J. T. Polymerase chain reaction amplification of a repetitive DNA sequence specific for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. J Infect Dis. 1990 May;161(5):977–981. doi: 10.1093/infdis/161.5.977. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Harrison W. R., Merbs C. F., Leathers C. R. Evidence of coccidioidomycosis in the skeleton of an ancient Arizona Indian. J Infect Dis. 1991 Aug;164(2):436–437. doi: 10.1093/infdis/164.2.436. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Keohavong P., Thilly W. G. Fidelity of DNA polymerases in DNA amplification. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1989 Dec;86(23):9253–9257. doi: 10.1073/pnas.86.23.9253. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Kwok S., Higuchi R. Avoiding false positives with PCR. Nature. 1989 May 18;339(6221):237–238. doi: 10.1038/339237a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Lawlor D. A., Dickel C. D., Hauswirth W. W., Parham P. Ancient HLA genes from 7,500-year-old archaeological remains. Nature. 1991 Feb 28;349(6312):785–788. doi: 10.1038/349785a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Mullis K. B., Faloona F. A. Specific synthesis of DNA in vitro via a polymerase-catalyzed chain reaction. Methods Enzymol. 1987;155:335–350. doi: 10.1016/0076-6879(87)55023-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Otal I., Martín C., Vincent-Lévy-Frebault V., Thierry D., Gicquel B. Restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis using IS6110 as an epidemiological marker in tuberculosis. J Clin Microbiol. 1991 Jun;29(6):1252–1254. doi: 10.1128/jcm.29.6.1252-1254.1991. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Porter-Jordan K., Rosenberg E. I., Keiser J. F., Gross J. D., Ross A. M., Nasim S., Garrett C. T. Nested polymerase chain reaction assay for the detection of cytomegalovirus overcomes false positives caused by contamination with fragmented DNA. J Med Virol. 1990 Feb;30(2):85–91. doi: 10.1002/jmv.1890300202. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Päbo S., Gifford J. A., Wilson A. C. Mitochondrial DNA sequences from a 7000-year old brain. Nucleic Acids Res. 1988 Oct 25;16(20):9775–9787. doi: 10.1093/nar/16.20.9775. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Päbo S., Irwin D. M., Wilson A. C. DNA damage promotes jumping between templates during enzymatic amplification. J Biol Chem. 1990 Mar 15;265(8):4718–4721. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Päbo S., Wilson A. C. Polymerase chain reaction reveals cloning artefacts. Nature. 1988 Aug 4;334(6181):387–388. doi: 10.1038/334387b0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Saiki R. K., Gelfand D. H., Stoffel S., Scharf S. J., Higuchi R., Horn G. T., Mullis K. B., Erlich H. A. Primer-directed enzymatic amplification of DNA with a thermostable DNA polymerase. Science. 1988 Jan 29;239(4839):487–491. doi: 10.1126/science.2448875. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Siebert P. D., Larrick J. W. PCR MIMICS: competitive DNA fragments for use as internal standards in quantitative PCR. Biotechniques. 1993 Feb;14(2):244–249. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Thierry D., Cave M. D., Eisenach K. D., Crawford J. T., Bates J. H., Gicquel B., Guesdon J. L. IS6110, an IS-like element of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. Nucleic Acids Res. 1990 Jan 11;18(1):188–188. doi: 10.1093/nar/18.1.188. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Walker D. A., Taylor I. K., Mitchell D. M., Shaw R. J. Comparison of polymerase chain reaction amplification of two mycobacterial DNA sequences, IS6110 and the 65kDa antigen gene, in the diagnosis of tuberculosis. Thorax. 1992 Sep;47(9):690–694. doi: 10.1136/thx.47.9.690. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Zimmerman M. R. Pulmonary and osseous tuberculosis in an Egyptian mummy. Bull N Y Acad Med. 1979 Jun;55(6):604–608. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America are provided here courtesy of National Academy of Sciences

RESOURCES