Scientists have identified the most ancient human disease

Scientists have found out, what is the oldest infectious disease in human history. As it was established, the bacteria leprosy existed 10 million years ago, and they definitely attacked our most distant ancestors.

leprosy

Researchers from the University of Texas at Houston have found that two species of bacteria that cause leprosy   ( leprosy ) Is derived from the total of its "parent bacterial" that existed 10 million years ago. People infected leprosy When they left Africa 100,000 years ago in an effort to populate the world. Note that today hundreds of thousands of people sick leprosy   - A chronic infectious disease that attacks the skin and nervous system.

Back in 2008, a scientist Ksiyan Han-Yang of the University of Texas discovered a new bacterium leprosy Mycobacterium lepromatosis, and since then have been analyzed 20 of its genes. Before that, it was assumed that the predecessors of modern bacteria leprosy went through a massive evolution that led to the shutdown of about 40% of the genes in the genome. But Khan with Prof. Francisco Silva of the University of Valencia in Spain were able to prove that leprosy not undergone such major changes - it remains almost the same for millions of years.

Leprosy bacteria can not live outside the human body, except for the wild armadillos, who have been infected by researchers of America a few centuries ago. More than 400 strains of Mycobacterium leprae, which are analyzed by scientists, have practically the same gene, which means that this disease infected our ancestors 100 thousand years ago, who left Africa. The researchers found that the genetic activation of the bacteria occurred 20 million years ago, and it means that the precursors of leprosy bacteria attack the most distant human ancestors at the time of their appearance in the world, that is 10 million years ago. That's when free-living bacteria moved into the category of parasites. (READ MORE)

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