Caitlyn Stulpin , 2025-04-23 17:36:00
April 23, 2025
3 min read
Key takeaways:
- A recent investigation of a 20th century museum collection found Epstein-Barr virus genetic material in penis sheaths.
- This analysis is one of few published studies exploring museum genomics, dubbed museomics.
DNA found in museum pieces could provide a unique opportunity to study the history and spread of infectious diseases, researchers said after discovering bacteria and infectious disease DNA in penis sheaths.
During an investigation of a museum collection at the Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris, Nicolás Rascovan, PhD, and colleagues analyzed samples from a collection of 20th century penis sheaths from Papua New Guinea. They ultimately discovered human-associated bacteria and an Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) genome on one of the sheaths, which was made from a hornbill beak between 1950 and 1970.
The researchers noted that while there was a lack of clean DNA deamination signal —which they said was likely due to the sheaths’ more recent origin — they were able to confirm that the EBV genome originated from the person who carried the sheath and was not a product of museum contamination.
“These findings highlight museum collections as valuable reservoirs of genetic data, offering historical insights into the evolution and spread of human pathogens,” the researchers wrote.
We spoke with Rascovan, the head of the microbial paleogenomics unit at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, about the investigation, as well as the emerging field focusing on these types of analyses called “museomics,” or museum genomics.
Healio: What prompted the analysis of the collection for potential historical bacteria?
Rascovan: There is growing interest in the museomics field, which explores the scientific potential of museum collections through ancient DNA analysis. These collections represent a largely untapped resource for studying the past, from biodiversity to human history and human infectious diseases.
In our case, we wanted to explore whether artifacts that had been in intimate contact with human bodies, and specifically penis sheaths worn directly on the genitals, could preserve microbial DNA. We were particularly interested in seeing whether viruses and bacteria associated with urogenital areas could survive on these objects decades after they were collected.
Healio: Are museum collections often investigated for this type of thing?
Rascovan: This is a rapidly growing field, but still relatively new. While museum collections are increasingly recognized as valuable sources of ancient DNA, there are still relatively few studies that have explored them specifically for human or microbial DNA, especially from personal or wearable artifacts. Our work is one of the first to investigate this potential and is among the few pioneering studies using ethnographic museum objects to recover and sequence ancient DNA.
Healio: What other infectious disease-related genetic data were found during this investigation?
Rascovan: We detected human DNA (not reported in the manuscript), as well as DNA from a wide range of commensal bacteria typically found in urogenital microbiomes. Many of these microbes are part of the normal microbial communities of the body but can become opportunistic pathogens under certain conditions, such as in immunocompromised individuals or through infected wounds.
These findings highlight the potential of such objects to retain complex microbial signatures.
Healio: Are there examples of similar findings in other museum collections? If so, what has been found?
Rascovan: To our knowledge, there are no previous publications reporting full pathogen genomes recovered from museum artifacts stored for decades.
However, two studies are worth mentioning for context:
In a study by Jensen and colleagues, EBV was detected in an approximately 5,700-year-old piece of chewing gum. However, they recovered only a small fragment of the virus genome — insufficient for phylogenetic analysis — and the object was processed shortly after excavation, not stored long-term in a museum.
Essel and colleagues recovered full human genomic data from a 20,000-year-old Paleolithic pendant, demonstrating that even ancient objects can retain sufficient DNA to reconstruct a complete genome of the person who wore them.
These examples, while different in scope, show the potential of object-based DNA recovery.
Healio: What is the clinical takeaway of this research?
Rascovan: The clinical significance of our work lies in its demonstration that museum artifacts can serve as a new source of historical pathogen DNA.
At the moment, most of our knowledge about human pathogens has come from modern samples. Accessing DNA from past infections allows us to study how pathogens have evolved over time — for example, to identify changes in virulent genes or tracing lineages that may have gone extinct or expanded significantly. This can improve our understanding of disease dynamics and how historical, environmental or social factors have influenced pathogen evolution.
In the specific case of our study, identifying EBV DNA in a museum artifact from Papua that is now held in a French museum adds valuable information about the geographic diversity and history of this virus in Oceania. This contributes to a more complete picture of EBV epidemiology and evolution across different human populations.
References:
For more information
Nicolás Rascovan, PhD, can be reached at adna@pasteur.fr.
