Ötzi’s Mummy Harbours Active Microbes, Yeast Dominates
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- Ötzi is stored at -6 °C and 99 % humidity at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy, to mimic his original glacier environment.
- Frank Maixner and his Eurac Research team analysed Ötzi samples from 1992, 2010 and 2019, comparing them with soil and ice from the original discovery site.
- Treponema and Kineothrix were identified as anaerobic gut bacteria whose DNA damage suggests they lived inside Ötzi while he was alive.
- Glaciozyma became the dominant psychrophilic yeast on Ötzi’s surface between 2010 and 2019, with reduced DNA damage indicating possible metabolic activity under museum conditions.
- Nikolay Oskolkov (Lund University) said the rise of Glaciozyma shows post‑mortem colonisation and growth on the mummy.
Why it matters: Conservators at the South Tyrol Museum must adapt preservation protocols to limit microbial growth, while scientists gain a rare window into Copper Age gut microbiota and post‑mortem colonisation dynamics.
Ask SkimNews
