"Ancient Clostridium DNA and variants of tetanus neurotoxins associated with human archaeological remains"
by Harold Hodgins from the Doxey lab:
Date: Tuesday October 24, 2023
Time: 1 - 3 p.m. ET
Location: HH 2107
The analysis of microbial genomes from human archaeological samples offers a historic snapshot of ancient pathogens and their virulence factors. Despite an abundance of ancient DNA studies on pathogens such as Yersinia pestis and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, there is a lack of information concerning the potential presence of pathogenic clostridia (e.g., Clostridium tetani and C. botulinum) and/or their neurotoxins in ancient DNA. Using a large-scale data mining study of available sequencing datasets, we identified neurotoxigenic C. tetani in ancient DNA, new Clostridium species unique to ancient human samples, and a novel variant of the tetanus neurotoxin that can cause disease in mammals.
Attendance is open to all faculty, students and postdocs who are interested. Light refreshments will be provided.
Call for future presentations: please contact Matt Scott (mscott@uwaterloo.ca) if you are interested in presenting at a future meeting.
Next meeting will be Tuesday, November 28 - details TBA soon!