Published in the journal scientific reports, a study on the DNA of a man who lived in Pompeii, victim of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 BC: the lava has preserved the genetic heritage intact.

He was between 35 and 40 years old and suffered from a disease similar to tuberculosis, probably originally from central Italy: for the first time, scholars were able to read the DNA of one of the inhabitants of Pompeii who lived more than 2000 years ago.

The result of the study paves the way for further research in this direction.

This is a "first", because so far only fragments of mitochondrial DNA (ie the code not contained in the nucleus of the cells, previously taken from both humans and animals of Pompeii) had been analyzed.

"The DNA was very degraded but we managed to extract it anyway", says the research coordinator, Gabriele Scorrano, of the Danish University of Copenhagen and the University of Rome Tor Vergata.

The eruption of Vesuvius had reached the man while he was in the blacksmith's house, in the company of an older woman of about 50

, for whom it was not possible to carry out a genetic analysis: "Their state of conservation was excellent. , must not have come into contact with too high temperatures - said the researcher - and it is likely that the volcanic ash that surrounded the two bodies, has created an oxygen-free environment: a gas that is a catalyst of reactions, which in this so they slowed down a lot ".    


In the skeleton of the man who lived 2,000 years ago, lesions were identified in one of the vertebrae

.

In the genetic map, there are sequences similar to those of the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis), which suggests to researchers that the man probably suffered from "tuberculous spondylitis" (the so-called Pott's disease).

It is an endemic disease in the Imperial Roman era.    

The comparison between the DNA of the man of Pompeii, with the genetic maps of about 1,500 Eurasians (1,030 of which lived in ancient times and 471 individuals born in modern times "suggests that the former had many elements similar to those of the inhabitants of Italy central, and other individuals who lived in Italy at the time of the Roman Empire ". 


The analysis of mitochondrial DNA and that of the Y chromosome also allowed scientists to"

identify groups of genes found in the inhabitants of Sardinia, but not in other individuals who lived in other areas of Italy in the same period

".

Serena Viva, a researcher at the University of Salento in Lecce, the University of California in Irvine and the Brazilian Federal University of Minas Gerais, in Belo Horizonte, collaborated on the study.

"I hope - concluded the researcher - that this is the starting point for more detailed analyzes on the Pompeii samples".