Titel
Metagenomic analysis of ancient dental calculus reveals unexplored diversity of oral archaeal Methanobrevibacter
Autor*in
Kun D. Huang
CIBIO Department, University of Trento
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Abstract
Background: Dental calculus (mineralised dental plaque) preserves many types of microfossils and biomolecules, including microbial and host DNA, and ancient calculus are thus an important source of information regarding our ancestral human oral microbiome. In this study, we taxonomically characterised the dental calculus microbiome from 20 ancient human skeletal remains originating from Trentino-South Tyrol, Italy, dating from the Neolithic (6000–3500 BCE) to the Early Middle Ages (400–1000 CE).
Results: We found a high abundance of the archaeal genus Methanobrevibacter in the calculus. However, only a fraction of the sequences showed high similarity to Methanobrevibacter oralis, the only described Methanobrevibacter species in the human oral microbiome so far. To further investigate the diversity of this genus, we used de novo metagenome assembly to reconstruct 11 Methanobrevibacter genomes from the ancient calculus samples. Besides the presence of M. oralis in one of the samples, our phylogenetic analysis revealed two hitherto uncharacterised and unnamed oral Methanobrevibacter species that are prevalent in ancient calculus samples sampled from a broad range of geographical locations and time periods.
Conclusions: We have shown the potential of using de novo metagenomic assembly on ancient samples to explore microbial diversity and evolution. Our study suggests that there has been a possible shift in the human oral microbiome member Methanobrevibacter over the last millennia.
Stichwort
Ancient DNAAncient dental calculusOral microbiomeMetagenomicsDe novo assemblyMethanobrevibacter
Objekt-Typ
Sprache
Englisch [eng]
Persistent identifier
Erschienen in
Titel
Microbiome
Band
9
ISSN
2049-2618
Erscheinungsdatum
2021
Publication
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Projekt
Kod / Identifikator
MetaPG
Fördergeber
Erscheinungsdatum
2021
Zugänglichkeit
Rechte
Rechteangabe
© The Author(s) 2021
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