DNA from Beethoven's Hair Hints at what Killed the Composer

 DNA from Beethoven's Hair Hints at what Killed the Composer

    DNA from Beethoven's hair has been tested and they are helping to uncover his exact cause of death. Beethoven had health issues most of his life. He died on March 28, 1827, and historians suspect it was because of liver failure. The analysis of his hair has shown that he carried several genetic risk factors for liver disease. Since he had this elevated risk, paired with his bad habit of drinking and potential liver infection, he brought about his own premature death. His skin apparently turned yellow in the summer of 1821 and it's thought to be that his faulty liver is the reason why. 

    This article caught my eye because I knew Beethoven lived so long ago so I was wondering why there was an article on this now. It is fascinating to see that even 2 centuries later technology can be used to identify some hair off of such an important person. I was wondering how this worked but in the article, it said they used hairs that were preserved very well and still intact. They also said from the strands they were given they separated some as they did not belong to Beethoven. This is so interesting because it has been saved and passed along all this time and way for it to not even belong to Beethoven. It is truly impressive what today's technology can accomplish. 

LINKS: 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/beethoven-hair-dna-composer-death

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dna-from-beethovens-hair-reveals-clues-about-his-death-180981870/#:~:text=The%20team%20sequenced%20two%2Dthirds,leading%20up%20to%20his%20death.

Beethoven: What Truly Caused His Death?

  Just imagine being able to go back in time and meeting any of your favorite idols. Unfortunately, this is not possible, but we can learn a lot about them in various ways, especially with surviving samples of their DNA. The well-renown German composer, Ludwig Van Beethoven, had multiple locks of his hair (some samples shown to be inauthentic or inconclusive) passed down from generation to generation. Tristen Begg and other researchers from the University of Cambridge (starting in 2014) analyzed the authentic samples to better understand the factors behind his death (known to be plagued by various health problems throughout his lifetime). After reconstructing Beethoven's genome, the research team was able to not only find a gene variant (PNPLA3) which increases the risks of liver disease but also traces of Hepatitis B (further increasing his susceptibility to infection).

  With all the evidence provided, it's logical to assume this is how he died. Especially, considering the fact nearing his death, he was a heavy drinker which would have caused additional damage unto his liver. Yet, what if the hair provided was not from Beethoven? It was found that the Y-chromosome in the samples were inconsistent with living relatives of an ancestor of Beethoven. Does that mean all that work was meaningless? Not exactly. As shown from within the article, one of Beethoven's ancestor's (paternal side) may have had a child outside of marriage. It's a plausible presumption and could further build onto what we know about his ancestry. If we had more DNA samples from famous figures in the past, imagine how much further we could delve into the unknowns of history.

Links

- https://www.sciencenews.org/article/beethoven-hair-dna-composer-death

- https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)00181-1