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Yakutia, Sakha Republic, in the Siberian Far East, represents one of the coldest places on Earth, with winter record temperatures dropping below -70 °C. Nevertheless, Yakutian horses survive all year round in the open air due to striking phenotypic adaptations, including compact body conformations, extremely hairy winter coats, and acute seasonal differences in metabolic activities. The evolutionary origins of Yakutian horses and the genetic basis of their adaptations remain, however, contentious. Here, we present the complete genomes of nine present-day Yakutian horses and two ancient specimens dating from the early 19th century and ∼5,200 y ago. By comparing these genomes with the genomes of two Late Pleistocene, 27 domesticated, and three wild Przewalski's horses, we find that contemporary Yakutian horses do not descend from the native horses that populated the region until the mid-Holocene, but were most likely introduced following the migration of the Yakut people a few centuries ago. Thus, they represent one of the fastest cases of adaptation to the extreme temperatures of the Arctic. We find cis-regulatory mutations to have contributed more than nonsynonymous changes to their adaptation, likely due to the comparatively limited standing variation within gene bodies at the time the population was founded. Genes involved in hair development, body size, and metabolic and hormone signaling pathways represent an essential part of the Yakutian horse adaptive genetic toolkit. Finally, we find evidence for convergent evolution with native human populations and woolly mammoths, suggesting that only a few evolutionary strategies are compatible with survival in extremely cold environments.

Bovine respiratory infections occupy the second place in the nosological picture after diseases of the digestive system and cause huge economic damage, which in the Russian Federation, according to our estimates, amounts to several billion rubles a year. Very often, respiratory pathologies in highly productive cows are complicated by wound infections of the distal extremities, which primarily include necrobacteriosis, streptococcosis and staphylococcosis, which also bring economic losses to farms due to reduced animal productivity and culling of highly productive cows.The primary causecontributing to the development of wound infections of the distal extremities in cattle is respiratory infections. According to our long-term observations, all farms where outbreaks of necrobacteriosis were recorded were unfavorable for bovine respiratory infections, such as infectious rhinotracheitis (IRT), viral diarrhea(VD), parainfluenza type 3 (PG-3) and respiratory syncytial infection (RSI). Comprehensive prevention of wound infectionsof the dental extremities of cattle (cattle) should include mandatory prevention of respiratory infections. For complex prevention of mixed infection, we proposed the use of an ECHO (electrochemically activated) solution of neutral anolyte (ANK+) in the form of a fine aerosol in combination with the use of a plant-tissue preparation “Vidoral”, (Patent RU 2,625,022 C2 dated 11.07.2017, copyright holder of the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Higher Education of the UralState Agrarian University ) with immunomodulatory properties.

The excavation of five frozen graves at the Sytygane Syhe and Istekh-Myrane burial sites (dated at 400 years old) in central Yakutia revealed five human skeletons belonging to the Yakut population. To investigate the origin and evolution of the Yakut population as well as the kinship system between individuals buried in these two sites, DNA was extracted from bone samples and analyzed by autosomal short tandem repeats (STRs) and by sequencing hypervariable region I (HV1) of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region. The results showed a diversity of sepulchral organizations linked probably to the social or genetic background of the subjects. Comparison of STR profiles, mitochondrial haplotypes, and haplogroups with data from Eurasian populations indicated affinities with Asian populations and suggested a relative specificity and continuity of part of the Yakut mitochondrial gene pool during the last five centuries. Moreover, our results did not support a Central Asian (with the exception of maternal lineage of West Eurasian origin) or Siberian origin of the maternal lineages of these ancient Yakut subjects, implying an ethnogenesis of the Yakut population probably more complex than previously proposed. KEY WORDS Siberia; Sakha; ancient DNA; kinship; ethnogenesis

In 2012, a seroprevalence survey concerning 10 zoonoses, which were bacterial (Lyme borreliosis and Q fever), parasitic (alveolar echinococcosis [AE] and cystic echinococcosis [CE], cysticercosis, toxoplasmosis, toxocariasis, and trichinellosis), or arboviral (tick-borne encephalitis and West Nile virus infection), was conducted among 77 adult volunteers inhabiting Suordakh and Tomtor Arctic villages in the Verkhoyansk area (Yakutia). Following serological testing by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and/or western blot, no positive result was found for cysticercosis, CE, toxocariasis, trichinellosis, and both arboviral zoonoses. Four subjects (5.2%) had anti-Toxoplasma IgG, without the presence of specific IgM. More importantly, eight subjects (10.4%) tested positive for Lyme borreliosis, two (2.6%) for recently acquired Q fever, and one (1.3%) for AE. Lyme infection and Q fever, whose presence had not been reported so far in Arctic Yakutia, appeared therefore to be a major health threat for people dwelling, sporting, or working in the Arctic area of the Sakha Republic.

A seroepidemiology survey of nine zoonoses was carried out in 2007 on 90 healthy adult volunteers in Viljujsk, a northern city in the Republic of Sakha (Eastern Siberia). The seroprevalence of Lyme borreliosis was 3.3% by immunofluorescence. None of the subjects displayed a positive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay/Western blot result for alveolar or cystic echinococcosis. The seroprevalence of toxocariasis by Western blot was 4.4%, and 8.9% of the subjects had anti-Toxoplasma IgG. By enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, the seroprevalence of trichinellosis was 4.4%. Three subjects were simultaneously positive for tick-borne encephalitis and West Nile infection, so no clear diagnostic conclusion could be reached for these flavivirus diseases. Interestingly, Crimea-Congo hemorrhagic fever had an 11.1% seroprevalence rate, indicating that Viljujsk is the most northern focus of this infection. Additionally, this finding suggests a potential involvement of Crimea-Congo hemorrhagic fever agent, or of another member of the Bunyaviridae family, in the genesis of the so-called Viljujsk encephalomyelitis.

Research of ancient pathogens in ancient human skeletons has been mainly carried out on the basis of one essential historical or archaeological observation, permitting specific pathogens to be targeted. Detection of ancient human pathogens without such evidence is more difficult, since the quantity and quality of ancient DNA, as well as the environmental bacteria potentially present in the sample, limit the analyses possible. Using human lung tissue and/or teeth samples from burials in eastern Siberia, dating from the end of 17(th) to the 19(th) century, we propose a methodology that includes the: 1) amplification of all 16S rDNA gene sequences present in each sample; 2) identification of all bacterial DNA sequences with a degree of identity ≥ 95%, according to quality criteria; 3) identification and confirmation of bacterial pathogens by the amplification of the rpoB gene; and 4) establishment of authenticity criteria for ancient DNA. This study demonstrates that from teeth samples originating from ancient human subjects, we can realise: 1) the correct identification of bacterial molecular sequence signatures by quality criteria; 2) the separation of environmental and pathogenic bacterial 16S rDNA sequences; 3) the distribution of bacterial species for each subject and for each burial; and 4) the characterisation of bacteria specific to the permafrost. Moreover, we identified three pathogens in different teeth samples by 16S rDNA sequence amplification: Bordetella sp., Streptococcus pneumoniae and Shigella dysenteriae. We tested for the presence of these pathogens by amplifying the rpoB gene. For the first time, we confirmed sequences from Bordetella pertussis in the lungs of an ancient male Siberian subject, whose grave dated from the end of the 17(th) century to the early 18(th) century.