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Chisholm, Rebecca H., et al. "Controlled fire use in early humans might have triggered the evolutionary emergence of tuberculosis." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2016): 201603224.
Significance
Tuberculosis is an ancient human disease that continues to affect millions of people worldwide. A crucial component of the origins of the tuberculosis bacterium remains a mystery: What were the conditions that precipitated its emergence as an obligate transmissible human pathogen? Here, we identify a connection between the emergence of tuberculosis and another major event in human prehistory, namely the discovery of controlled fire use. Our results have serious and cautionary implications for the emergence of new infectious diseases—feedback between cultural innovation and alteration of living conditions can catalyze unexpected changes with potentially devastating consequences lasting thousands of years.
Abstract
Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC), a wildly successful group of organisms and the leading cause of death resulting from a single bacterial pathogen worldwide. It is generally accepted that MTBC established itself in human populations in Africa and that animal-infecting strains diverged from human strains. However, the precise causal factors of TB emergence remain unknown. Here, we propose that the advent of controlled fire use in early humans created the ideal conditions for the emergence of TB as a transmissible disease. This hypothesis is supported by mathematical modeling together with a synthesis of evidence from epidemiology, evolutionary genetics, and paleoanthropology.
Significance
Tuberculosis is an ancient human disease that continues to affect millions of people worldwide. A crucial component of the origins of the tuberculosis bacterium remains a mystery: What were the conditions that precipitated its emergence as an obligate transmissible human pathogen? Here, we identify a connection between the emergence of tuberculosis and another major event in human prehistory, namely the discovery of controlled fire use. Our results have serious and cautionary implications for the emergence of new infectious diseases—feedback between cultural innovation and alteration of living conditions can catalyze unexpected changes with potentially devastating consequences lasting thousands of years.
Abstract
Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC), a wildly successful group of organisms and the leading cause of death resulting from a single bacterial pathogen worldwide. It is generally accepted that MTBC established itself in human populations in Africa and that animal-infecting strains diverged from human strains. However, the precise causal factors of TB emergence remain unknown. Here, we propose that the advent of controlled fire use in early humans created the ideal conditions for the emergence of TB as a transmissible disease. This hypothesis is supported by mathematical modeling together with a synthesis of evidence from epidemiology, evolutionary genetics, and paleoanthropology.
, I lived in Indonesia when I was a child; TBC is killer #1 in Indonesia.
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