Degree Type
Honors Capstone Project
Date of Submission
Spring 5-2017
Capstone Advisor
Shannon Novak/Anthony Garza
Honors Reader
Diane Wiener
Capstone Major
Anthropology
Capstone College
Arts and Science
Audio/Visual Component
no
Capstone Prize Winner
yes
Won Capstone Funding
yes
Honors Categories
Social Sciences
Subject Categories
Anthropology
Abstract
Tuberculosis is one of the most ubiquitous diseases in human history. Despite the long history of human interactions with the disease, tracking it retroactively is difficult because of its low rate of associated, diagnostic bony changes. Ancient DNA, also called aDNA, is a novel method for examining the presence of disease in the past. Currently, the only way to isolate tuberculosis aDNA is to drill and section bone, a method that is both invasive and expensive, limiting its use in the archaeological record. This capstone examines new ways of tracking and understanding tuberculosis in the past, utilizing the DNA trapped in calcified dental plaque, or dental calculus.
Tuberculosis DNA has never been isolated from dental calculus before. In this paper, I report the first-ever successful isolation of tuberculosis aDNA from the dental calculus of 13 individuals from the Smithsonian’s Huntington Collection (1893-1921). Calculus from two unaccessioned mandibles, as well as calculus from four Irish immigrants tested positive for tuberculosis, illustrating that dental calculus is a good reservoir for tuberculosis aDNA. Two of the Irish immigrants had no other indicators of tuberculosis, either skeletal or archival, and their identification as tubercular enriches our understandings of their lives, illustrating the fruitfulness of this technique.
Recommended Citation
Young, Soleil, "Please Forget to Floss: Developing an Assay for Identifying Tuberculosis in Dental Calculus from the Smithsonian’s Huntington Collection (1893-1921)" (2017). Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All. 1006.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/1006
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
