Using pieces of a gallstone from a mummy from the 1500s, researchers have been able to reconstruct the E. coli genome. Credit: Division of Paleopathology of the University of Pisa
Using fragments taken from a 16th-century mummy’s gallstone, a multinational team headed by scientists fromgenome. According to experts, many details of its evolutionary history, such as when it acquired new genes and antibiotic resistance, are still unknown., in contrast to well-known pandemics like the Black Death, which persisted for centuries and killed as many as 200 million people worldwide. However, its impact on human health and mortality was likely enormous.
Researchers now have a benchmark for comparing how the genome of the present bacteria has changed and adapted over the last 400 years thanks to the discovery of a 400-year-old ancestor.