A complete mitochondrial genome of a Roman-era Plasmodium falciparum

Malaria has been one of the principal infection-related causes of death throughout human history and remains, to this day, a severe threat to public health in African countries. Five Plasmodium species are the causal agents of malaria in humans with . Plasmodium falciparum being the most prevalent. Pathogenic DNA from ancient human remains have been crucial for studying their origin and evolution. However, to date there have been no complete ancient DNA genomes of malaria, which makes it challenging to understand this pathogen's origin, expansion and virulence in the past. As paludism has no clear osteological markers and the amount of Plasmodium DNA in osteological material is limited, recovering substantial paleogenetic data is challenging. Here, we present the first complete mtDNA genome of Plasmodium falciparum recovered from a 2nd-century CE Roman individual from Velia, Italy. We also demonstrate that malaria screening may require extensive sampling to obtain information on the evolution of the vector-borne disease from archaeological samples. Our data support the hypothesis of an Indian origin for P. falciparum in Europe and provide evidence for the genetic continuity of this lineage throughout the last 2000 years.