A 5500-year-old <i>Treponema pallidum</i> genome from Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia
Treponematosis, a bacterial infection caused by <i>Treponema pallidum</i> subspecies and <i>T. carateum</i> (yaws, bejel, syphilis, pinta), has afflicted humans for millennia. Despite paleopathological evidence and emerging genomic data, little is known about the evolutionary history of these pathogens. We report a 5500-year-old <i>Treponema</i> genome (TE1-3) from Middle Holocene hunter-gatherer contexts of the rock shelter Tequendama I in Colombia. Our analyses place TE1-3 as a sister lineage to all known <i>T. pallidum</i> subspecies, positioning this pathogen in the Americas millennia before European contact and before diversification of the subspecies causing syphilis, yaws, and bejel. This discovery broadens the known diversity of <i>T. pallidum</i> while extending the genomic record of treponemal pathogens by millennia, providing molecular support for a deep history of <i>T. pallidum</i> in the Americas.
Authors
- Miguel Burbano Delgado
- David Šmajs (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4176-3464)
- Elizabeth A. Nelson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1570-1083)
- Nicolás Rascovan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2129-5878)
- Jane E. Buikstra (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0206-0165)
- Davide Bozzi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4828-356X)
- Anna‐Sapfo Malaspinas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1001-7511)
- Kalina Kassadjikova (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3365-6367)
- Gilbert Greub (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9529-3317)
- Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5350-1608)
- Carlos Eduardo G Amorim
- Melissa Pratt Estrada
Institutions
- SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (CH)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (AR)
- Institut Pasteur (FR)
- California State University, Northridge (US)
- Southern Methodist University (US)
- University of California, Santa Cruz (US)
- Université Paris Cité (FR)
- Masaryk University (CZ)
- Fudan University (CN)
- Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (CO)
- Arizona State University (US)
- Universidad Nacional de La Plata (AR)
- University of Lausanne (CH)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science
- Published
- 2026-01-22
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adw3020
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Syphilis Diagnosis and Treatment
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 65.68