ИСТИНА

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that has accompanied mankind throughout much of its history. Until recently, morphoscopic techniques have been the main way of studying the prevalence of tuberculosis in past. The development of genetic (especially genomic) technologies has allowed the study of ancient bacterial genomes from skeletal remains, shedding light on the evolution of extant pathogens. We analyzed a series of skeletons from a Kozino village cemetery (Moscow Region) dating from the Late Medieval to Modern periods. Based on morphological criteria, a quantitative index that indicated the probability of tuberculosis was derived. In parallel, we performed genomic screening of material from skeletal remains and carried out identification of phylogenetic lineages of ancient Mycobacterium tuberculosis using existing SNP. The results of our analysis reveal a spread of M. tuberculosis lineage 4 (L4) in Eastern Europe during the Late Medieval