Journal
GENOME BIOLOGY
Volume 21, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
BMC
DOI: 10.1186/s13059-020-02079-z
Keywords
Vaccination; Smallpox; Vaccinia virus; Ancient DNA
Funding
- Banting Fellowship
- Government of Canada through an Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [430-21018-00662]
- Genome Canada
- Ontario Genomics Institute [OGI-170]
- Canada Research Chair
- SSHRC Insight Grant
- McMaster University
- ARC Australian Laureate Fellowship
- Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council [RGPIN-2015-04477]
- Red Wilson
- Cisco Systems Canada, Inc.
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research [PJT-156214]
- Canadian Foundation for Innovation Grants
- M.G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research Summer Student Fellowship
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Vaccination has transformed public health, most notably including the eradication of smallpox. Despite its profound historical importance, little is known of the origins and diversity of the viruses used in smallpox vaccination. Prior to the twentieth century, the method, source and origin of smallpox vaccinations remained unstandardised and opaque. We reconstruct and analyse viral vaccine genomes associated with smallpox vaccination from historical artefacts. Significantly, we recover viral molecules through non-destructive sampling of historical materials lacking signs of biological residues. We use the authenticated ancient genomes to reveal the evolutionary relationships of smallpox vaccination viruses within the poxviruses as a whole.
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