Dental pulp metagenomics reveals ancient human Herpesviridae
Journal: bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
Year: 2022

ABSTRACT Following a recent report on ancient human Herpesviridae (HHV), we adapted a standard protocol used for the high-throughput sequencing of modern DNA to recover ancient DNA (aDNA) from dental pulp specimens collected at two historical burial sites. Investigation of 36 soldiers buried in Sevastopol, Crimea, during the 1853-1856 Crimean War yielded genomic sequences covering 8.5% of the herpes simplex virus (HSV)-1 genome, 15.7% of the HSV-2 genome, 1.9% of the Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) gen