Neonate Human Remains: A Window of Opportunity to the Molecular Study of Ancient Syphilis

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Rafael Montiel¹^,⁴, Eduvigis Solórzano²^¤, Nancy Díaz²^¤, Brenda A. Álvarez-Sandoval¹, Mercedes González-Ruiz², Mari Pau Cañadas³, Nelson Simões⁴, Albert Isidro²^,⁵, Assumpció Malgosa²^*

1 Laboratorio Nacional de Genómica para la Biodiversidad, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional (CINVESTAV-IPN), Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico, 2 Unitat d'Antropologia, Departament de Biologia Animal, Biologia Vegetal i Ecologia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain, 3 Departament de Biologia Molecular, General Lab, Barcelona, Spain, 4 Research Center for Natural Resources (CIRN), Department of Biology, University of the Azores, Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal, 5 Servei de Cirurgia Ortopèdica i Traumatologia (COT), Hospital Universitari del Sagrat Cor, Barcelona, Spain

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Ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis can be a useful tool in bacterial disease diagnosis in human remains. However, while the recovery of Mycobacterium spp. has been widely successful, several authors report unsuccessful results regarding ancient treponemal DNA, casting doubts on the usefulness of this technique for the diagnosis of ancient syphilis. Here, we present results from an analysis of four newborn specimens recovered from the crypt of “La Ermita de la Soledad” (XVI–XVII centuries), located in the province of Huelva in the southwest of Spain. We extracted and analyzed aDNA in three independent laboratories, following specific procedures generally practiced in the aDNA field, including cloning of the amplified DNA fragments and sequencing of several clones. This is the most ancient case, reported to date, from which detection of DNA from T. pallidum subspecies pallidum has been successful in more than one individual, and we put forward a hypothesis to explain this result, taking into account the course of the disease in neonate individuals.

Citation: Montiel R, Solórzano E, Díaz N, Álvarez-Sandoval BA, González-Ruiz M, et al. (2012) Neonate Human Remains: A Window of Opportunity to the Molecular Study of Ancient Syphilis. PLoS ONE 7(5): e36371. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0036371
Editor: David Caramelli, University of Florence, Italy

Received: December 22, 2011; Accepted: March 30, 2012; Published: May 2, 2012
Copyright: © 2012 Montiel et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: The authors acknowledge the following grants: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain (MEC; http://www.educacion.gob.es/) grant No. CGL2008-00800 to Dr. Malgosa; Generalitat de Catalunya (http://www.gencat.cat/), grant No. PR2009-0128 to the Grup de Recerca en Antropologia Biológica (GREAB); Consejo de Ciencia y Tecnología del Estado de Guanajuato, Mexico (CONCYTEG; http://www.concyteg.gob.mx/) grant No. 08-03-K662-076 A04 to Dr. Montiel; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT; http://www.conacyt.gob.mx/) grant No. CB-2008-01-105481) to Dr. Montiel. Dr. Montiel received a postdoc grant (SFRH/BPD/32473/2006) from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal (FCT; http://www.fct.pt/). Dr. Álvarez-Sandoval is supported by CONACYT. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
* E-mail: Assumpcio.Malgosa@uab.cat
¤ Current address: Departamento de Biopatología, Universidad de los Andes, Mérida, Venezuela