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Contagions
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- May 7, 2012
- 12:02 AM
- 98 views
Leptin: Linking Malnutrition and Vulnerability to Infection
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
The correlation between malnutrition and vulnerability to infection has been well established (discussed previously here). While the immune dysfunction could be characterized it was not until the last 10-15 years that an exact mechanism began to resolve. It all began with the discovery of a new hormone called leptin from an unexpected place, adipose tissue [...]... Read more »
Cava, A., & Matarese, G. (2004) The weight of leptin in immunity. Nature Reviews Immunology, 4(5), 371-379. DOI: 10.1038/nri1350
Procaccini C, Jirillo E, & Matarese G. (2012) Leptin as an immunomodulator. Molecular aspects of medicine, 33(1), 35-45. PMID: 22040697
- April 29, 2012
- 09:30 AM
- 67 views
Tracking a Live Yersinia pestis Infection with Bioluminescence
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
The day has finally arrived when an experimental infection can be tracked real-time over the entire course of the infection. Developing a natural history of a rapidly lethal infectious disease has been a challenge because individual variation clouds the progression and individuals can only be studied after death. The traditional method to study these infections [...]... Read more »
Nham, T., Filali, S., Danne, C., Derbise, A., & Carniel, E. (2012) Imaging of Bubonic Plague Dynamics by In Vivo Tracking of Bioluminescent Yersinia pestis. PLoS ONE, 7(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0034714
- March 23, 2012
- 07:00 AM
- 305 views
Primary Pneumonic Plague Transmission in the USA, 1900-2009
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
Pneumonic plague is a difficult phenomenon to model. We really don’t have much data from the modern medical era. Hinckley et al. (2012) argue that most of the data studied to date has been biased by taking it from well-established epidemics. To better study all transmission conditions, they gathered all of the cases of primary [...]... Read more »
Hinckley AF, Biggerstaff BJ, Griffith KS, & Mead PS. (2012) Transmission dynamics of primary pneumonic plague in the USA. Epidemiology and infection, 140(3), 554-60. PMID: 21733272
- March 14, 2012
- 07:15 PM
- 175 views
What makes a Super-Spreader?
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
Parameters that should be theoretically equal often aren’t so in the real world. Ideally everyone should have the same potential to transmit an infection during a given outbreak, but it has long been observed that this isn’t true. Super-spreaders play an extraordinary role in driving outbreaks of infectious disease. A super-spreader is a person who [...]... Read more »
Stein RA. (2011) Super-spreaders in infectious diseases. International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, 15(8). PMID: 21737332
Lloyd-Smith JO, Schreiber SJ, Kopp PE, & Getz WM. (2005) Superspreading and the effect of individual variation on disease emergence. Nature, 438(7066), 355-9. PMID: 16292310
Galvani AP, & May RM. (2005) Epidemiology: dimensions of superspreading. Nature, 438(7066), 293-5. PMID: 16292292
- February 26, 2012
- 11:00 PM
- 239 views
Gothic Epidemiology? or Gothic Historiography?
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
I was reading David Mengel’s recent article on plague in Bohemia and he kept referring to this apparently well-known concept, gothic epidemiology. Being the early medieval geek that I am, my first thought was Ostrogoth or Visigoth, and what do they have to do with epidemiology, especially in Bohemia? Feeling that I was clearing missing [...]... Read more »
Getz FM. (1991) Black death and the silver lining: meaning, continuity, and revolutionary change in histories of medieval plague. Journal of the history of biology, 24(2), 265-89. PMID: 11612554
Mengel DC. (2011) A plague on Bohemia? Mapping the Black Death. Past , 211(1), 3-34. PMID: 21961188
- February 25, 2012
- 10:20 PM
- 201 views
Generating Immunity to the Plague
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
Its pretty amazing that we still don’t have a vaccine against the plague. Work still goes on and it hasn’t been easy by any means, but it really isn’t a priority that you hear about much. Vaccines developed to date have issues with side effects and the need for repeat immunizations to be protective against [...]... Read more »
Li B, Du C, Zhou L, Bi Y, Wang X, Wen L, Guo Z, Song Z, & Yang R. (2012) Humoral and Cellular Immune Responses to Yersinia pestis Infection in Long-Term Recovered Plague Patients. Clinical and vaccine immunology : CVI, 19(2), 228-34. PMID: 22190397
- February 18, 2012
- 01:23 PM
- 220 views
Plague Detection by Immuno-PCR
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
Once again the Marseille research group is pushing the bounds of plague detection. This time their target is looking for a more sensitive method of detecting non-nucleic acid biomolecules from Yersinia pestis, ‘the plague’. We have now moved into an era where PCR is being used in the mechanics of testing, rather than amplifying the [...]... Read more »
Malou, N., Tran, T., Nappez, C., Signoli, M., Le Forestier, C., Castex, D., Drancourt, M., & Raoult, D. (2012) Immuno-PCR - A New Tool for Paleomicrobiology: The Plague Paradigm. PLoS ONE, 7(2). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0031744
- February 5, 2012
- 05:09 PM
- 261 views
Mapping Malaria in Anglo-Saxon England
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
England once looked very different. Much of southern Britain was marshland for most of the island’s occupied history. These bogs, fens, and marshes ensured that areas of virtual wilderness persisted from before Roman Britain through the Norman period and beyond. Despite the difficulties of using fenlands, these areas were not only occupied throughout the Anglo-Saxon [...]... Read more »
Gowland RL, & Western AG. (2011) Morbidity in the marshes: Using spatial epidemiology to investigate skeletal evidence for malaria in Anglo-Saxon England (AD 410-1050). American journal of physical anthropology. PMID: 22183814
- January 16, 2012
- 07:39 AM
- 162 views
Retrospective Diagnosis in the 21st Century
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
The way we make and think about retrospective diagnosis is changing. Over the last decade, laboratory results have become the preferred (maybe even mandatory) method of making a retrospective diagnosis [1]. To extrapolate a few positive laboratory results to cover an entire epidemic, it must correlate with reported signs and symptoms and ideally epidemiology. There [...]... Read more »
Little, L. (2011) Plague Historians in Lab Coats. Past , 213(1), 267-290. DOI: 10.1093/pastj/gtr014
Mitchell, P. (2011) Retrospective diagnosis and the use of historical texts for investigating disease in the past. International Journal of Paleopathology, 1(2), 81-88. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpp.2011.04.002
Raoult D. (2011) Molecular, epidemiological, and clinical complexities of predicting patterns of infectious diseases. Frontiers in microbiology, 25. PMID: 21687417
- January 2, 2012
- 07:00 AM
- 200 views
Malaria Near the Arctic Circle
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
When I think of Finland, malaria just doesn’t normally come to mind. Although northern climes often have swarms of mosquitoes, its hard to imagine mosquito-borne infections gaining much traction in the short summer season. Yet defying imagination, malaria has thrived in northern Finland, Sweden and Russia near the arctic circle in the past. In the [...]... Read more »
Huldén L, Huldén L, & Heliövaara K. (2005) Endemic malaria: an 'indoor' disease in northern Europe. Historical data analysed. Malaria journal, 4(1), 19. PMID: 15847704
- November 26, 2011
- 02:30 PM
- 489 views
Did India and China Escape the Black Death?
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
One of the few things everyone studying the plague can, I think, agree on is the importance of plague dynamics in Asia. Genetic diversity and biogeography suggest that Yersinia pestis evolved in East Central Asia (S. Russia, Mongolia, N. China) and spread along the Eurasian steppe from the Caspian Sea in Kazakstan to the Mongolia [...]... Read more »
Morelli G, Song Y, Mazzoni CJ, Eppinger M, Roumagnac P, Wagner DM, Feldkamp M, Kusecek B, Vogler AJ, Li Y.... (2010) Yersinia pestis genome sequencing identifies patterns of global phylogenetic diversity. Nature genetics. PMID: 21037571
Li Y, Cui Y, Hauck Y, Platonov ME, Dai E, Song Y, Guo Z, Pourcel C, Dentovskaya SV, Anisimov AP.... (2009) Genotyping and phylogenetic analysis of Yersinia pestis by MLVA: insights into the worldwide expansion of Central Asia plague foci. PloS one, 4(6). PMID: 19543392
Sussman GD. (2011) Was the black death in India and china?. Bulletin of the history of medicine, 85(3), 319-55. PMID: 22080795
- October 16, 2011
- 11:24 PM
- 526 views
Black Death Genome Fished Out of East Smithfield
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
Fishing just isn’t what it used to be, and neither is DNA sequencing. Reconstructing the ancient plague genome required the development of new technology that was able to enrich the sequencing sample by concentrating the Y. pestis sequence fragments from the brew of human DNA and contaminants in all aDNA extracts. Using an Agilent Capture [...]... Read more »
Bos, K., Schuenemann, V., Golding, G., Burbano, H., Waglechner, N., Coombes, B., McPhee, J., DeWitte, S., Meyer, M., Schmedes, S.... (2011) A draft genome of Yersinia pestis from victims of the Black Death. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature10549
Haensch, S., Bianucci, R., Signoli, M., Rajerison, M., Schultz, M., Kacki, S., Vermunt, M., Weston, D., Hurst, D., Achtman, M., Carniel, E., and Bramanti, B. (2010) Distinct clones of Yersinia pestis caused the Black Death. PLoS Pathogens, 6(10). info:/
- October 10, 2011
- 01:09 AM
- 414 views
Famine and Epidemics Come Hand in Hand
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
After many natural disasters, famines and epidemics quickly follow with depressing predictability. It is not just a coincidence related to the damaged infrastructure and loss of stored foodstuffs. It has long been thought that there is a direct link between malnutrition and immune suppression, but the mechanism has been, and is still, poorly understood. It [...]... Read more »
Schaible UE, & Kaufmann SH. (2007) Malnutrition and infection: complex mechanisms and global impacts. PLoS medicine, 4(5). PMID: 17472433
- September 5, 2011
- 01:53 PM
- 703 views
Cradle of Cholera’s Seventh Pandemic Found
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
Cholera is a disease of seemingly endless fascination to epidemiologists for good reason. Vibrio cholerae emerged on a global stage in the 19th century just in time for the beginnings of modern medicine to grapple with it and for its transmission to prove the worth of epidemiological work. Although we understand its treatment and transmission [...]... Read more »
Safa, A., Nair, G., & Kong, R. (2010) Evolution of new variants of Vibrio cholerae O1. Trends in Microbiology, 18(1), 46-54. DOI: 10.1016/j.tim.2009.10.003
- September 3, 2011
- 04:34 PM
- 696 views
DNA of the Black Death at East Smithfield, London
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
It seems as though every couple of months a new paper is published reporting Yersinia pestis DNA from ancient remains. This week brought the latest installment from London’s East Smithfield Black Death cemetery. This cemetery holds a special place in the scientific investigations of the Black Death because it is so well documented as being [...]... Read more »
Schuenemann, V., Bos, K., DeWitte, S., Schmedes, S., Jamieson, J., Mittnik, A., Forrest, S., Coombes, B., Wood, J., Earn, D.... (2011) PNAS Plus: Targeted enrichment of ancient pathogens yielding the pPCP1 plasmid of Yersinia pestis from victims of the Black Death. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1105107108
- August 21, 2011
- 07:00 AM
- 717 views
When Anthrax first came to North America
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
When pathogens arrived in the Americas is important for understanding the demographic history and biogeography of humans, animals and microbes of the Western Hemisphere. There have been two major periods of human migration to this hemisphere: across the Bering Land Bridge from Asia during the last Ice Age and the arrival of Christopher Columbus in [...]... Read more »
Kenefic LJ, Pearson T, Okinaka RT, Schupp JM, Wagner DM, Hoffmaster AR, Trim CB, Chung WK, Beaudry JA, Jiang L.... (2009) Pre-Columbian origins for North American anthrax. PloS one, 4(3). PMID: 19283072
Keim PS, & Wagner DM. (2009) Humans and evolutionary and ecological forces shaped the phylogeography of recently emerged diseases. Nature reviews. Microbiology, 7(11), 813-21. PMID: 19820723
- August 12, 2011
- 12:02 AM
- 729 views
Ancient Remnants: Biomolecules in Paleomicrobiology
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
Ancient DNA is not the only method of detecting and identifying ancient pathogens. Survival challenges for ancient DNA place very real limitations on its usefulness and sensitivity as a detection method. The main advantage of aDNA is that it can be genotyped to compare with modern species. For archaeological purposes, other biomolecules may be detected [...]... Read more »
Tran TN, Aboudharam G, Raoult D, & Drancourt M. (2011) Beyond ancient microbial DNA: nonnucleotidic biomolecules for paleomicrobiology. BioTechniques, 50(6), 370-80. PMID: 21781037
Pusch CM, Rahalison L, Blin N, Nicholson GJ, & Czarnetzki A. (2004) Yersinial F1 antigen and the cause of Black Death. The Lancet infectious diseases, 4(8), 484-5. PMID: 15288817
Nelson ML, Dinardo A, Hochberg J, & Armelagos GJ. (2010) Brief communication: Mass spectroscopic characterization of tetracycline in the skeletal remains of an ancient population from Sudanese Nubia 350-550 CE. American journal of physical anthropology, 143(1), 151-4. PMID: 20564518
- August 3, 2011
- 01:56 PM
- 707 views
Hunting Pathogens in Siberian Permafrost Graves
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
The Yakut community of Eastern Siberia has gained some attention from anthropologists because it culturally stands out from other Siberian populations. Their Turkic language, unique burial practices, and horse-breeding culture is not native to Siberia. Recent genetic analysis of 58 bodies preserved in permafrost from the last five centuries and 166 current members of the [...]... Read more »
Thèves, C., Senescau, A., Vanin, S., Keyser, C., Ricaut, F., Alekseev, A., Dabernat, H., Ludes, B., Fabre, R., & Crubézy, E. (2011) Molecular Identification of Bacteria by Total Sequence Screening: Determining the Cause of Death in Ancient Human Subjects. PLoS ONE, 6(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0021733
Crubézy E, Amory S, Keyser C, Bouakaze C, Bodner M, Gibert M, Röck A, Parson W, Alexeev A, & Ludes B. (2010) Human evolution in Siberia: from frozen bodies to ancient DNA. BMC evolutionary biology, 25. PMID: 20100333
- July 22, 2011
- 01:31 AM
- 558 views
Tools of Paleomicrobiology
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
Studying ancient microbes requires creativity. Contamination and preservation are the primary problems, dealing with limited and degraded tissues. We don’t find corpses in permafrost every day! Most of the time tissue is confined to bones and mummies kept in a wide variety of environments. This post will review some of the major tools I have [...]... Read more »
Drancourt, M., & Raoult, D. (2005) Palaeomicrobiology: current issues and perspectives. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 3(1), 23-35. DOI: 10.1038/nrmicro1063
- July 4, 2011
- 03:09 PM
- 842 views
Trench Fever in German Mass Burial
by Michelle Ziegler in Contagions
Trench fever seems to be all the rage these days in paleomicrobiology. It seems as though every time Bartonella quintana is added to a panel of pathogens for aDNA screening its found at some level. So far its been found in in a tooth from 4000 before present, in late medieval Venice, 14th century France, [...]... Read more »
Grumbkow, P., Zipp, A., Seidenberg, V., Fehren-Schmitz, L., Kempf, V., Groß, U., & Hummel, S. (2011) Brief communication: Evidence of Bartonella quintana infections in skeletons of a historical mass grave in Kassel, Germany. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21551
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