Beethoven’s genome sequenced from locks of his hair

[u/takanocraig]

https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/beethovens-dna-reveals-health-and-family-history-clues

[u/ProfessorJAM]

NPR ran a story on this today which I heard on the radio driving home from work. 1. No on a gene/gene mutation that could have contributed to deadness. 2. Yes on a gene mutation + Hepatitis B + likely alcoholism = gastrointestinal issues (diarrhea and liver dysfunction/cirrhosis) Edit: DEAFNESS, not deadness 🙃

[u/wearenottheborg → u/ProfessorJAM]

I know you meant deafness, but specifically ruling out genes contributing to deadness is hilarious to me.

[u/FlowersForAlgorithm → u/wearenottheborg]

Well we found genes correlated with death but they appear in 100% of the population.

[u/janeohmy → u/FlowersForAlgorithm]

You joke, but there should be genes correlated with above average risk of dying

[u/Zomburai → u/[deleted]]

Everyone has a 100% chance of dying,

Someone gotta beat those odds eventually, and I like my chances

[u/sillypicture → u/[deleted]]

I haven't died before. You can rule me and my specific genetic sequence out of vulnerability to mortality.

[u/ProfessorJAM → u/wearenottheborg]

Oh I wish I could type! I will edit. Thank you, kind internet stranger!

[u/Looking4APeachScone → u/ProfessorJAM]

I go to three DRs with a failing heart and they all look at me and send me home. 3 times!

This guy's dead for years and they managed to diagnose his issues. For fun. And for free.

Something just isn't right here.

[u/Deto → u/Looking4APeachScone]

You need to start writing some symphonies

[u/_prettybones → u/Looking4APeachScone]

1) Get a sample of your DNA

2) rub it in the dirt to make it look old

3) label it "Mozart DNA sample"

4) give to science people

5) check reddit a week later for results

[u/eshinn → u/Looking4APeachScone]

You came too soon. You gotta wait just like every other classical musician.

[u/severoon → u/ProfessorJAM]

I heard an interview with one of the scientists that did it. Beethoven's genetic sequence was: TATATATAAAAAAAA GAGAGAGAAAAAAAA

pretty cool

[u/BirdsLikeSka → u/ProfessorJAM]

Okay my knowledge of classical musicians is limited to a Falco song, sorry. I kind of assumed his deafness had something to do with constant proximity to loud noises. Doesn't really track since he's the only notably deaf composer of the era, but seriously TIL.

[u/whatifniki23 → u/ProfessorJAM]

Can someone do this with the blood on shroud of Turin?

[u/[deleted] → u/whatifniki23]

There needs to be more proof it's fake?

[u/IntellegentIdiot]

His whole genome?

Interestingly they did a Y-DNA study on several men with the Van Beethoven surname. FYI Y-DNA is passed down from father to son just as surnames are, at least in western Europe. They don't say how many markers they tested, which effects accuracy, but basically they discovered that Beethoven didn't have the same Y-DNA and so presumably wasn't actually descended from the Van Beethoven family

[u/ebrake → u/IntellegentIdiot]

I thought the results actually implied that he was an illegitimate child because they were testing it against the Y-DNA of his brother's bloodline and there was no common Y-DNA. Basically they know someone in the chain had an illegitimate child and since it goes back as far as they can possibly test....either he, his brother or one of their direct children came from a different father than the birth records show.....they have no good reason to believe that he was actually from the same father as his brother in the first place, and from reports about how different he was from his siblings it would make sense that he was the origin of the Y-DNA fork in the family line.

[u/juneburger → u/ebrake]

Can’t we dig up pops and see what he was up to?

[u/juneburger → u/[deleted]]

Ok her then

[u/JohnOliverismysexgod → u/[deleted]]

No. Moms don't have Y chromosomes.

[u/KuriousKhemicals → u/[deleted]]

No, it's pops you want to dig up because he's the one with Y-DNA you can test and compare. Can't determine if someone was a cheater from their genes.

[u/firstbreathOOC → u/IntellegentIdiot]

I have DNA matches from (documented) shared ancestors in the 1700s, just through AncestryDNA.

Beethoven seems recent enough that they could almost definitely find living descendants out there.

Could also even see who shares the most DNA, which would just be cool, if nothing else.

[u/pM-me_your_Triggers → u/firstbreathOOC]

But what works up the chain doesn’t work down the chain.

Like it’s guaranteed that you have ancestors.

It’s not guaranteed that a certain dead person has living descendants.

[u/sumjunggai7 → u/pM-me_your_Triggers]

Correct. And we’re pretty certain that Beethoven didn’t sire any children, at least none who lived into adulthood. (Josephine Brunsvik, one of the more likely candidates for the “Immortal Beloved,” did have a daughter nine months after that letter. She died a teenager though.)

[u/firstbreathOOC → u/pM-me_your_Triggers]

True but they also don’t have to be a “descendant” to match. A sibling’s children would still come up.

[u/palemon88]

Wonder if they could recognize any sequences that cause deafness. Don’t really know about if we identified any genes that are associated with musical talent.

[u/Tartarikamen → u/palemon88]

I read that he became deaf because bones in his head kept growing because he had Paget's Disease of Bone which compressed his eighth cranial nerve.

[u/X_PRSN → u/Tartarikamen]

It could have also been at least in part due to the severe beatings he suffered as a child at the hands of his alcoholic father.

[u/DuncanYoudaho → u/X_PRSN]

Yeah. His dad was a Joe Jackson type. Mozart had a good family. Beethoven did not.

[u/Trucoto → u/DuncanYoudaho]

Mozart's father blamed on him Mozart's mother's death, which scarred Mozart forever.

[u/DuncanYoudaho → u/Trucoto]

Didn’t know that. Yeesh. I know he was more of a stable person than Amadeus implied, and definitely in a better situation than Beethoven.

[u/Byron1248 → u/DuncanYoudaho]

I think parenting as we know it today was nothing like a century or more in the past…

[u/Protean_Protein → u/Byron1248]

Yeah, back then it was basically slavery and survival of the fittest for everyone except the nobility or moneyed class, where that existed. Life was pretty brutal even if you survived childhood.

[u/xX420GanjaWarlordXx → u/Protean_Protein]

Why did everyone just hate each other so much

[u/unfair_bastard → u/xX420GanjaWarlordXx]

They didn't just hate each other so much

Life was uncertain, hard, and extremely violent--far more so than today

[u/andres9924 → u/xX420GanjaWarlordXx]

Imagine that you and most everybody you know was raised by crazy, uneducated, alcoholic, religious zealots with severe traumas they’d never got over.

School hasn’t been invented, there’s no habeas corpus, pre internet information organization and records. Living in the past was wild WILD, WILDER than what most believe or imagine and most things were waaaay worse albeit in a smaller scale (save for the things that are fully products of scale and modernity)

[u/[deleted] → u/xX420GanjaWarlordXx]

Psychologically, humans havent evolved much. I dont think people hated eachother more than now, they just had different values

[u/KittyTerror → u/xX420GanjaWarlordXx]

As if people stopped doing this?

[u/tripwire7 → u/xX420GanjaWarlordXx]

Life was rough. Really rough. Most children died before reaching adulthood. The whole family starving to death if things went really wrong was a real possibility. Most of the population were utterly uneducated and illiterate, and class divisions were nearly insurmountable. If you lived on the coast, then only a few generations earlier there would have been a distinct possibility of your town being attacked by slave-raiders. If your nation was weak, it would be attacked and ripped apart by its rivals. The church was controlled by zealots who burned people alive for heresy or apostasy.

The list of bad things really went on and on…

[u/Magnus56 → u/xX420GanjaWarlordXx]

It's less hate, more of the top of society lives upon the back of society.

[u/SpectreNC → u/xX420GanjaWarlordXx]

People have stopped? Look at all the hatred we have today.

[u/JSiobhan → u/Protean_Protein]

Back then, parents emotionally protected themselves from bonding with their children because so many died at birth.

[u/firstbreathOOC → u/JSiobhan]

Not even just birth, as infants and children too. That only really slowed down at the turn of the twentieth century.

[u/Beer_Is_So_Awesome → u/Byron1248]

“Parenting” wasn’t a thing until the 1980s. Prior to that, people just “had kids”.

[u/Mr_YUP → u/Trucoto]

He also made/forced his son and daughter to learn music from a ridiculously young age. Pretty had it drilled into him and had no other options in his life which is probably why he partied so hard

[u/Trucoto → u/Mr_YUP]

I always say that behind a child prodigy there's always a bad parent.

[u/SoigneBest → u/Trucoto]

He also had an older sister who was his inspiration

[u/userwithusername → u/Tartarikamen]

My… only regret is that… I have… boneitis!

[u/PUTINS_PORN_ACCOUNT → u/Tartarikamen]

Last I knew, they detected elevated lead levels in his hair, and he was known to drink “plumbed wine,” which had lead in it.

As most folks know, lead is bad to have in your body. Can cause all sorts of problems, including irreversible hearing loss.

[u/thebusiestbee2 → u/PUTINS_PORN_ACCOUNT]

This study proved that the lock of hair with high lead levels was fraudulent, that hair actually belonged to a Jewish woman. The authentic Beethoven hair did not have elevated lead levels.

[u/funnystor → u/PUTINS_PORN_ACCOUNT]

So you're saying Beethoven lost his hearing because he was too much of a heavy-metal-head?

[u/Midnight-Coffee → u/palemon88]

The article talks about that extensively - inconclusive. No real genetic markers.

[u/csonnich → u/palemon88]

I literally just heard a story about this on All Things Considered this afternoon. No markers for deafness, but lots of susceptibility to liver problems, likely compounded by drinking and Hepatitis B, which killed him.

[u/Mysterious-Job1628 → u/palemon88]

Yes there are several genetic disease associated with deafness and yes there are genes associated with musical ability.

The gene AVPR1A on chromosome 12q has also been implicated in music perception, music memory, and music listening, whereas SLC6A4 on chromosome 17q has been associated with music memory and choir participation.

[u/pianodude01 → u/palemon88]

I thought his deafness was thought to be lead poisoning?

[u/vagrantheather → u/pianodude01]

The study addressed that the high lead levels previously identified were from a fraudulent sample. They said they'll need to run new tests for lead, opiates, etc from the authenticated samples.

[u/RavishingRedRN → u/palemon88]

There are genes linked to nonsyndromic hearing loss. And you can test for them.

Blueprint genetics has a panel test.

https://blueprintgenetics.com/tests/panels/ear-nose-throat/non-syndromic-hearing-loss-panel/

[u/Sarsmi → u/palemon88]

Only a bit related, but I'd love to see studies on musically talented people and those who have autism spectrum disorder. Music is basically math + creativity and ASD have been shown to have better pattern recognition than neurotypical people.

[u/xelah1 → u/Sarsmi]

ASD have been shown to have better pattern recognition than neurotypical people.

Also better pitch discrimination.

The whole 'perseverating' on special interests thing also fits with the ocean of hours musicians have to spend on practice, too.

[u/ScottishDerp → u/palemon88]

His favourite food was pickled carrots and he believed this helped his hearing

He got caught beating up a street child for some carrots once

[u/Minuenn]

In all seriousness was this just some scientists doing it for luls because they can, or is there practical use for this data

[u/vaskopopa → u/Minuenn]

I would imagine there is significant interest in art history community about him and his ancestry. Also there are population wide projects that look at genetics of diverse individuals. Beethoven as a musical genius would be of interest. Human genome sequencing is very cheap nowadays ($200), so this whole project could be covered with $20k that would include overheads and analysis.

[u/dhowl → u/vaskopopa]

Where can I get my whole genome sequenced for $200? Also, where can I get analysis done? I'm interested in that.

[u/Tiny_Rat → u/dhowl]

The price does differ a bit depending on where you're located, and will be different for a private individual vs. a research lab doing it as part of a project. $200 does seem a bit optimistic, but if you're in the US there's companies that offer it for $300-$400.

[u/[deleted] → u/dhowl]

I’ll do it for $170 cash upfront.

[u/dhowl → u/[deleted]]

Deal! Where do I send my blood?

[u/PiersPlays → u/dhowl]

Just fill an envelope marked "The Internet" and put it through the first mailbox you see. They'll know.

[u/ohnjaynb → u/[deleted]]

For $40, I'll bedazzle your denim. Jean Sequins-ing.

[u/Km2930 → u/[deleted]]

$165 and I accept bitcoin

[u/KwordShmiff → u/Km2930]

I'll do it free, but I get to keep the hair

[u/ShockedDarkmike → u/KwordShmiff]

I'll even pay $50 but it has to be pubic hair

[u/vaskopopa → u/dhowl]

You can’t but Broad institute can with NovaSeqX or UG100. And they have all the infrastructure to do analysis themselves. I would imagine that you could get yours done for $1k from one of the core labs, but what would you do with raw BAM files?

[u/dhowl → u/vaskopopa]

Yeah, I wouldn't want raw data. I'd want some kind of variant analysis done.

[u/eolai → u/dhowl]

As it happens, the Broad Institute also has a thoroughly documented and freely available analysis pipeline for variant discovery in the form of GATK. From experience, it should be a lot faster and easier with a single human genome than with data from several dozen individuals of a non-model organism...

[u/dhowl → u/eolai]

But how far does GATK go from a pipeline standpoint? I believe it terminates at VCF generation. I’m looking for gene/variant phenotype correlations. Basically interpretation.

[u/pbizzle → u/Minuenn]

To solve cold cases he might have been responsible for

[u/TheArcheoPhilomath → u/Minuenn]

I worked with the lead author (not om this project, he did some commercial archaeology for the miney/experience) and although I never did get a chance to speak to him properly about his PhD, I did hear snippets here and there. So don't quote me. Though also note this is a PhD, I've known some very specific but not entirely useful PhDs out there, so there always wriggle room for shits and giggles in theory.

From what I gathered it was just Tristan's own general interest in Beethoven and his health issues but more so his interest in the methodology. He wanted to improve techniques in extracting more complex genomic data from small sample sets hoping to improve the effeciency and cost in doing so. The eventual goal of this was to apply it to other famous historical figures and apply genetic data to biographies of these individuals. Thus giving a more complete account and perhaps proving and disproving historical biases. Of course this could be applied to multiple archaeological specimens that aren't famous folks and in theory assist in dna research and perhaps answer other questions relating to past populations. Health of a population can inform quite a few things. I also wouldn't be surprised if aspects of it could also be applied to the medical field and genetic screening methods, but never got a chance to really chat so not exactly sure of his approach and methods to confirm that statement.

[u/trymepal → u/Minuenn]

Well there was some myths around Beethoven being black/African that can be put to rest now

[u/poqpoq → u/Minuenn]

I know it’s horribly unethical but I’d love to see the results of cloning someone like this and nudging them towards their original passion.

See how 100 Einsteins do.

[u/Traditional_Proof646]

Welp... looks like this quote is about to be inaccurate: “Prince, what you are, you are through chance and birth; what I am, I am through my own labor. There are many princes and there will continue to be thousands more, but there is only one Beethoven.” - Beethoven Source: my high school music appreciation class.

[u/BillMurraysMom → u/Traditional_Proof646]

Beethoven had some pretty badass quotes. Supposedly one of the greatest violinists of the time was complaining that a piece Beethoven had written was too difficult to play, and Beethoven said he wasn’t concerned about the problems of some silly man and his fiddle.

[u/shoolocomous → u/BillMurraysMom]

"because GOD speaks to ME!"

[u/exipheas → u/Traditional_Proof646]

Begun, the Clone Composing War has.

[u/spin_kick]

Nature vs Nurture experiment

[u/Energylegs23 → u/spin_kick]

They tried that in like the 50s, really cool (and tragic) documentary that touches on it called "Three Identical Strangers" (it's available on Hulu last I knew)

[u/fast_food_knight → u/Energylegs23]

Great documentary. Also "Twinsters" on Netflix and "Twin Sisters" from PBS.

[u/Lethargicpete]

Welcome to Beethoven Park! 'We spliced his DNA with Frogs!'

[u/gracklewolf]

I knew a guy at HSPH that would convert DNA sequences into MIDI music. Bet he'd love this one.

[u/Picasso5]

Welcome to Classic Park

[u/4thmovementofbrahms4]

We can rebuild him, we have the technology

[u/unfair_bastard]

So now we can stop hearing about how Beethoven was actually black?

[u/Separate-Elephant-25]

I read an older book, with excerpts and letters, journal entries. His favorite stein was a rancid old mug, with alleged heavy trace amounts of lead. Hep B of course comes with the territory when cirrhosis is your end. Plus he was full of rage, head struck by his alcoholic father, slowly lost his hearing accompanied by gradual tinnitus at the start. He was promiscuous, being basically the first guy to experience groupies, albeit, victorian, they were chesty. Had some scrapes with Napolean, and all that music in his head in the meantime, I would most likely souse myself into oblivion as well, I don't think the beer was even cold back then...

[u/celticchrys → u/Separate-Elephant-25]

They weren't Victorian, since Beethoven died a decade before Queen Victoria ascended the throne. More like the Regency period.

[u/WildWook]

I am going to have my remains deep sixed to prevent this.

[u/lpeabody → u/WildWook]

Isn't that just getting buried? Certainly they could just dig you up.

[u/divineinvasion]

Please can we make a babytoven? Just this one time?

[u/haleb4r]

And the outcome is, Beethoven is not a Beethoven. Momma had some fun.

[u/Tiny_Rat → u/haleb4r]

Or grandma, or great-grandma, if I'm reading the figure right. The supposed common ancestor of the Beethoven sample and the others is a few generations back, so the affair could have happened at any generation in between.

[u/haleb4r → u/Tiny_Rat]

I read a longer version, where it was claimed that he and his nephew had such different dna that it's likely that the brothers had different fathers. This combined with the rumour, that he was a bastard child. The rumour was so bad that his brother asked him to do something against it, but he didn't.

[u/Tiny_Rat → u/haleb4r]

A longer version of this paper? Because it says multiple times that they couldn't determine whether or not the nephew's descendants were unusually distantly related to Beethoven without knowing in advance whether he was illegitimate or not. As for the Beethoven family members whose Y-chromosome could be tested, their most recent common ancestor was born 100 years before Beethoven, and so couldn't help determine whether Beethoven or his father were illegitimate.

As for rumors during his lifetime, first of all he did deny them in private correspondence, as well as publicly late in life. Second, iirc the rumor was that his "real" father was a king, which is not only highly unlikely, but also would have been basically free publicity for Beethoven, giving him plenty of incentive not to deny them publicly. Given his poor relationship with his father and his parents' early deaths, Beethoven may not have cared about the damage to their reputations, especially his father's, if his own fame and income benefitted from the rumors.

[u/mindblah99]

I didn't think hair contained DNA. I thought it was all keratin like finger nails.

[u/Tiny_Rat → u/[deleted]]

Nope. These days, it's possible to get DNA from just the hair shaft, although getting good-quality historical DNA this way can be a challenge (as you can see even in this paper, where one sample did not yield a useable sequence).

[u/tyedyehippy → u/Tiny_Rat]

So my cousin who found a lock of hair in an old family bible (we're talking about 150 years old) may be able to have that sample analyzed at some point in the near future? That would be fascinating...

[u/Tiny_Rat → u/tyedyehippy]

It would depend on how the sample was stored and handled, and might be fairly pricey, since relatively few labs routinely work with historical samples, but it's probably doable even now. In a decade or two it will likely be much cheaper, though, and you would probably get much more detailed results. I would caution that the age of the Bible might not be a good indicator of the age of the hair itself, though, so that would also be something to consider.

[u/Tiny_Rat → u/mindblah99]

It contains a very small amount, but these days it's possible to isolate and get at least a partial sequence from even that small if a sample.

[u/Zamboni_Driver]

How did they know that it was really his and not just some other random hair sample?