Metagenomics of medieval ancients dental pulps from island of Corsican France.

The dental pulp, trapping intact erythrocytes at the time of death, may offer a suitable material to document ancient intraerythrocytic pathogens such as Plasmodium parasites. Total DNA and proteins extracted from 33 dental pulp specimens collected from individuals exhumed in the 9th-13th century archaeological site in Mariana, Corsica were analyzed by open mind paleo-auto-immunohistochemistry and direct metagenomic and Plasmodium targeted immunochromatography assay.