Functional host-specific adaptation of the intestinal microbiome in hominids.

Fine-scale knowledge of the changes in composition and function of the human gut microbiome compared that of our closest relatives is critical for understanding the evolutionary processes underlying its developmental trajectory. To infer taxonomic and functional changes in the gut microbiome across hominids at different timescales, we perform high-resolution metagenomic-based analyzes of the fecal microbiome from over two hundred samples including diverse human populations, as well as wild-living chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas. We find human-associated taxa depleted within non-human apes and patterns of host-specific gut microbiota, suggesting the widespread acquisition of novel microbial clades along the evolutionary divergence of hosts. In contrast, we reveal multiple lines of evidence for a pervasive loss of diversity in human populations in correlation with a high Human Development Index, including evolutionarily conserved clades. Similarly, patterns of co-phylogeny between microbes and hosts are found to be disrupted in humans. Together with identifying individual microbial taxa and functional adaptations that correlate to host phylogeny, these findings offer insights into specific candidates playing a role in the diverging trajectories of the gut microbiome of hominids. We find that repeated horizontal gene transfer and gene loss, as well as the adaptation to transient microaerobic conditions appear to have played a role in the evolution of the human gut microbiome.

Tools for opening new chapters in the book of Treponema pallidum evolutionary history.

Treponema pallidum infections causing yaws disease and venereal syphilis are globally widespread in human populations, infecting hundreds of thousands and millions annually respectively; endemic syphilis is much less common, and pinta has not been observed in decades. We discuss controversy surrounding the origin, evolution and history of these pathogens in light of available molecular and anthropological evidence. These bacteria (or close relatives) seem to affect many wild African nonhuman primate (NHP) species, though to date only a single NHP Treponema pallidum genome has been published, hindering detection of spillover events and our understanding of potential wildlife reservoirs. Similarly, only ten genomes of Treponema pallidum infecting humans have been published, impeding a full understanding of their diversity and evolutionary history. Research efforts have been hampered by the difficulty of culturing and propagating Treponema pallidum. Here we highlight avenues of research recently opened by the coupling of hybridization capture and next-generation sequencing. We present data generated with such an approach suggesting that asymptomatic bones from NHP occasionally contain enough treponemal DNA to recover large fractions of their genomes. We expect that these methods, which naturally can be applied to modern biopsy samples and ancient human bones, will soon considerably improve our understanding of these enigmatic pathogens and lay rest to old yet unresolved controversies.