BEETHOVEN'S HAIR DNA

MAESTRO'S HEALTH SECRETS REVEALED

It is genealogical genetics that arrives to partially lift the veil on the causes of his suffering. In this case Ludwig van Beethoven, the German composer whose DNA, from several strands of hair, could be analyzed in order to determine the causes of his deafness and his death. The work, which took almost eight years to complete, was carried out by an international team led by Johannes Krause, a paleogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, and is published in the journal Current Biology.

It is indeed nearly three meters of hair attributed to the famous composer that an international team of researchers has analyzed in the laboratory. Died of an unknown cause in 1827 at the age of 56, Beethoven nevertheless bequeathed to the world 34 locks of hair, not all of which have been formally authenticated, and eight of which made it possible to carry out these new works published in the Current Biology journal.

These are seven locks, entrusted by various private collectors and museums, which were thus digested by special solutions, and from which the scientists then extracted and analyzed the DNA. "It was a long and complicated process before we could use our sequencing," recalls Tristan Begg, first author of the study, which began in late 2014.

Of the eight samples, three were discarded because the DNA did not match that of the other five.

A genetic predisposition to liver disease

The expectations surrounding this work are high, as the mystery surrounding Beethoven's death persists despite the rich documentation relating to it. These include the composer's own writings and those of his contemporaries kept during his lifetime and after his death, an autopsy, descriptions of his skeleton twice exhumed, but also the literature produced since.

We do know, however, that he suffered from liver disease, the first symptoms of which appeared six years before his death and of which he himself related at least two attacks of jaundice. Given his regular and sometimes heavy consumption of alcohol, cirrhosis of the liver has long been strongly suspected to have led to his death. “A close friend is said to have said that around 1825-1826 Beethoven consumed at least a liter of wine for lunch every day,” the researchers report in the publication.

Thanks to their DNA analysis, they reinforce the credibility of this hypothesis by detecting a genetic predisposition for liver disease. In particular, they detect the presence of two copies (homozygosity) of a variant of the PNPLA3 gene. This finding, however, greatly strengthens the cirrhosis hypothesis.

A deafness that remains mysterious

The researchers also focused on the composer's most famous impairment: his deafness, which occurred in his twenties. Hearing loss with tinnitus, over-perception of sound volume and loss of high frequencies that finally ended his career as an artist in his mid-forties. Unfortunately, no known damage could be identified in Beethoven's DNA.

An illegitimate affair

A surprise however emerged from the comparison of Ludwig van Beethoven's DNA with several of the descendants of his family branch.

The study has indeed highlighted the existence of an illegitimate child in Beethoven's paternal line, which researchers place between the birth of Hendrik van Beethoven in Kampenhout in Flemish Brabant around 1572 and that of the composer seven generations later.