La paléomicrobiologie

Abstract

The objective of Paleomicrobiology which forms part of microbiology, is to establish microbial diagnosis of ancient infectious diseases. One can consider the adjective “ancient” as devoted to specimens preceding microbial identification as developed at the end of XIX th century. Ancient microorganisms can be detected in environment samples as well as in “ancient” human samples. Skeletons constitute the major source of human material containing potentially ancient bacteria and we have shown that dental pulp, protected in dental cavities in skeletons, forms a particularly interesting material for identification of ancient bacteraemic agents. Molecular biology methods are the best current approach for detection of microorganisms in ancient specimens. Ancient tuberculosis has given rise to the most frequent published studies, and we have contributed to the diagnosis of ancient plague by using new original methods such as “suicide” PCR, and an original genotypic technique, the Multi Spacer Typing (MST).