Publications

Preprints

2. Martin Fenk, Alexandra Hrdina, James B. Winans, Meike Soerensen, Laura Ostertag, Elina Coquery, Fatoumata Sow, Sirak Petros, Catalina-Suzana Stingu, Norman Lippmann, Carey D. Nadell, Igor Iatsenko, Bastian Pasieka, Felix M. Key
Colonization, translocation, and evolution of opportunistic pathogens during hospital-associated infections. biorxiv (2025). weblink

 

1. Anne Kathrine W. Runge, Ian Light-Maka, Ken Massy, Marcel Keller, Simon Trixl, Helja Kabral, Casey L. Kirkpatrick, Kirsten Bos, Jana Eger, Michal Ernée, René Kyselý, Michael Hochmuth, Dominik Poradowski, Aleksander Chrószcz, Norbert Benecke, David Daněček, Jana Klementová, Anatoli Nagler, Alexey A. Kalmykov, Anatoly R. Kantorovich, Vladimir E. Maslov, Andrey B. Belinskiy, Christiana L. Scheib, Meda Toderaş, Svend Hansen, Philipp W. Stockhammer, Kai Kaniuth, Regina Uhl, Sabine Reinhold, Rosalind E. Gillis, Elizabeth A. Nelson, Kamilla Pawlowska, Felix M. Key
Probing the zooarchaeological record across time and space for ancient pathogens. biorxiv (2025). weblink

Research Articles

20. Ian Light-Maka, Taylor R. Hermes, Raffaela Angelina Bianco, Lena Semerau, Pavel Kosintsev, Valeriia Alekseeva, Donghee Kim, William P. Hanage, Alexander Herbig, Choongwon Jeong, Christina Warinner, Felix M. Key
Bronze Age Yersinia pestis genome from sheep sheds light on hosts and evolution of a prehistoric plague lineage. Cell (2025). weblink

 

19. Louis L’Hôte, Ian Light, Valeria Mattiangeli, Matthew D Teasdale, Áine Halpin, Lionel Gourichon, Felix M Key, Kevin G Daly
An 8000 years old genome reveals the Neolithic origin of the zoonosis Brucella melitensis. Nature Communications (2024). weblink

 

18. Felix M. Key, Veda D Khadka, Carolina Romo-González, Kimbria J Blake, Liwen Deng, Tucker C Lynn, Jean C Lee, Isaac M Chiu, Maria Teresa García-Romero, Tami D Lieberman
On-person adaptive evolution of Staphylococcus aureus during atopic dermatitis increases disease severity. Cell Host & Microbe (2023).  weblink

 

17. Aida Andrades Valtueña, Gunnar U Neumann, Maria A Spyrou, Lyazzat Musralina, Franziska Aron, Arman Beisenov, Andrey B Belinskiy, Kirsten I Bos, Alexandra Buzhilova, Matthias Conrad, Leyla B Djansugurova, Miroslav Dobeš, Michal Ernée, Javier Fernández-Eraso, Bruno Frohlich, Mirosław Furmanek, Agata Hałuszko, Svend Hansen, Éadaoin Harney, Alina N Hiss, Alexander Hübner, Felix M Key, Elmira Khussainova, Egor Kitov, Alexandra O Kitova, Corina Knipper, Denise Kühnert, Carles Lalueza-Fox, Judith Littleton, Ken Massy, Alissa Mittnik, José Antonio Mujika-Alustiza, Iigo Olalde, Luka Papac, Sandra Penske, Jaroslav Pěska, Ron Pinhasi, David Reich, Sabine Reinhold, Raphaela Stahl, Harald Stäuble, Rezeda I Tukhbatova, Sergey Vasilyev, Elizaveta Veselovskaya, Christina Warinner, Philipp W Stockhammer, Wolfgang Haak, Johannes Krause, Alexander Herbig
Stone Age Yersinia pestis genomes shed light on the early evolution, diversity, and ecology of plague. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). weblink

 

16. Veda D Khadka*, Felix M Key*, Carolina Romo-González, Adrián Martínez-Gayosso, Blanca L Campos-Cabrera, Armando Gerónimo-Gallegos, Tucker C Lynn, Carola Durán-McKinster, Rafael Coria-Jiménez, Tami D Lieberman, Maria T García-Romero
The skin microbiome of patients with atopic dermatitis normalizes gradually during treatment. Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology (2021). weblink

 

15. Arthur Kocher, Luka Papac, Rodrigo Barquera, Felix M Key, [164 co-authors], Wolfgang Haak, Johannes Krause, Denise Kühnert
Ten millennia of hepatitis B virus evolution. Science (2021). weblink

 

14. Xiyan Wu, Chao Ning, Felix M Key, Aida Andrades Valtueña Aditya Kumar Lankapalli, Shizhu Gao, Xuan Yang, Fan Zhang, Linlin Liu, Zhongzhi Nie, Jian Ma, Johannes Krause, Alexander Herbig, Yinqiu Cui
A 3,000-year-old, basal S. enterica lineage from Bronze Age Xinjiang suggests spread along the Proto-Silk Road. PLOS Pathogens (2021). weblink

 

13. Felix M. Key, Cosimo Posth, Luis R. Esquivel Gomez, [40 co-authors], Denise Kuehnert, Alexander Herbig, Johannes Krause 
Emergence of human-adapted Salmonella enterica is linked to the Neolithization process. Nature Ecol & Evol (2020), weblink

 

12. Ron Hübler*, Felix M. Key*, Christina Warinner, Kirsten Bos, Johannes Krause, Alexander Herbig
HOPS: Automated detection and authentication of pathogen DNA in archaeolog- ical remains. Genome Biology (2019). weblink

 

11. Alexander Immel, Felix M. Key*, András Szolek*, Rodrigo Barquera*, Julian Susat, Ben Krause-Kyora, Maria Spyrou, Kirsten Bos, Paul J. Norman, Jill Hol- lenbach, Stephen Forrest, Diana Hernandez, Jürgen Sauter, Ute Solloch, Verena Schuenemann, Ella Reiter, Rainer Weiß, Joachim Wahl, Oliver Kohlbacher, Alexander Herbig, Johannes Krause
Analysis of Genomic DNA from Medieval Plague Victims Suggests Long-Term Effect of Yersinia pestis on Human Immunity Genes. Molecular Biology and Evolution (2021). weblink

 

10. Maria A Spyrou, Marcel Keller, Rezeda I Tukhbatova, Christiana L Scheib, Elizabeth A Nelson, Aida Andrades Valtueña, Gunnar U Neumann, Don Walker, Amelie Alterauge, Niamh Carty, Craig Cessford, Hermann Fetz, Michaël Gour- vennec, Robert Hartle, Michael Henderson, Kristin von Heyking, Sarah A Inskip, Sacha Kacki, Felix M Key, Elizabeth L Knox, Christian Later, Prishita Maheshwari-Aplin, Joris Peters, John E Robb, Jürgen Schreiber, Toomas Kivisild, Dominique Castex, Sandra Lösch, Michaela Harbeck, Alexander Herbig, Kirsten I Bos, Johannes Krause
Phylogeography of the second plague pandemic revealed through analysis of his- torical Yersinia pestis genomes Nature Communications (2019). weblink

 

9. David Reher, Felix M. Key, Aida Andrés, Janet Kelso
Immune gene diversity in archaic and present-day humans. Genome Biology and Evolution (2019). weblink

 

8. Felix M. Key, Muslihudeen Abdul-Aziz, Roger Mundry, Benjamin Peter, Mauro D’Amato, Megan Dennis, Joshua Schmidt, Aida Andrés. Local adaptation of a human cold receptor along a latitudinal cline. PLoS Genetics (2018). weblink

 

7. Ben Krause-Kyora*, Julian Susat*, Felix M. Key, Denise Kühnert, Esther Bosse, Alexander Immel, Christoph Rinne, Sabin-Christin Kornell, Diego Yepes, Sören Franzenburg, Henrike O Heyne, Thomas Meier, Sandra Lösch, Harald Meller, Susanne Friederich, Nicole Nicklisch, Kurt W Alt, Stefan Schreiber, Andreas Tholey, Alexander Herbig, Almut Nebel, Johannes Krause
Neolithic and medieval virus genomes reveal complex evolution of Hepatitis B. eLife (2018). weblink

 

6. Aida Andrades Valtueña, Alissa Mittnik, Felix M. Key, Wolfgang Haak, Raili Allmae, Andrej Belinskij, Mantas Daubaras, Michal Feldman, Rimantas Jankauskas, Ivor Jankovic, Ken Massy, Mario Novak, Saskia Pfrengle, Sabine Reinhold, Mario Slaus, Maria A Spyrou, Anna Szecsenyi-Nagy, Mari Torv, Svend Hansen, Kirsten I Bos, Philipp W Stockhammer, Alexander Herbig, Johannes Krause.
The Stone Age Plague: 1000 years of Persistence in Eurasia. Current Biology (2017). weblink

 

5. Kay Pruefer, Cesare de Filippo, Steffi Grote, Fabrizio Mafessoni, Petra Korlevic, Mateja Hajdinjak, Benjamin Vernot, Laurits Skov, Pinghsun Hsieh, Stephane Peyregne, David Reher, Charlotte Hopfe, Sarah Nagel, Tomislav Maricic, Qiaomei Fu, Christoph Theunert, Rebekah Rogers, Pontus Skoglund, Manjusha Chintalapati, Michael Dannemann, Bradley J. Nelson, Felix M. Key, Pavao Rudan, Zeljko Kucan, Ivan Gussic, Liubov V. Golovanova, Vladimir B. Doronichev, Nick Pat- terson, David Reich, Evan E. Eichler, Montgomery Slatkin, Mikkel H. Schierup, Aida Andrés, Janet Kelso, Matthias Meyer, Svante Pääbo
A high-coverage Neandertal genome from Vindija Cave in Croatia. Science, (2017). weblink

 

4. Felix M. Key, Qiaomei Fu, Frédéric Romagné, Michael Lachmann, Aida M. Andrés.
Human adaptation and population differentiation in the light of ancient genomes. Nature Communications (2016). weblink

 

3. Cesare de Filippo, Felix M. Key, Silvia Ghirotto, Andrea Benazzo, Juan R. Meneu, Antje Weihmann, NISC Comparative Sequence Program, Genís Parra, Eric D. Green, and Aida M. Andrés.
Recent selection changes in human genes under long-term balancing selection. Molecular Biology and Evolution (2016) weblink

 

2. Felix M. Key, Benjamin Peter, Megan Y Dennis, Emilia Huerta-Sanchez, Wei Tang, Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson, Rasmus Nielsen, Aida M Andrés.
Selection on a Variant Associated with Improved Viral Clearance Drives Local, Adaptive Pseudogenization of Interferon Lambda 4 (IFNL4). PLoS Genetics (2014). weblink

 

1. Bernhard Lehnertz, Jason C Rogalski, Felix M. Schulze, Lin Yi, Shujun Lin, Jürgen Kast, Fabio MV Rossi.
p53-dependent transcription and tumor suppression are not affected in Set7/9- deficient mice. Molecular Cell (2011). weblink

 

Reviews

1. Felix M. Key*, Joao C. Teixeira*, Cesare de Filippo, Aida M. Andrés. Advantageous diversity maintained by balancing selection in humans. Current opinion in Genetics & Development, 29.45-51. (2014). weblink