scholarly journals Acquisition of yersinia murine toxin enabled Yersinia pestis to expand the range of mammalian hosts that sustain flea-borne plague

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. e1009995
Author(s):  
David M. Bland ◽  
Adélaïde Miarinjara ◽  
Christopher F. Bosio ◽  
Jeanette Calarco ◽  
B. Joseph Hinnebusch
Keyword(s):  
Yersinia Pestis ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Yersinia Pseudotuberculosis ◽  
Original Description ◽  
Bacterial Survival ◽  
Protective Function ◽  
Rat Blood ◽  
Black Rat ◽  
Brown Rat ◽  
Blood Characteristics

Yersinia murine toxin (Ymt) is a phospholipase D encoded on a plasmid acquired by Yersinia pestis after its recent divergence from a Yersinia pseudotuberculosis progenitor. Despite its name, Ymt is not required for virulence but acts to enhance bacterial survival in the flea digestive tract. Certain Y. pestis strains circulating in the Bronze Age lacked Ymt, suggesting that they were not transmitted by fleas. However, we show that the importance of Ymt varies with host blood source. In accordance with the original description, Ymt greatly enhanced Y. pestis survival in fleas infected with bacteremic mouse, human, or black rat blood. In contrast, Ymt was much less important when fleas were infected using brown rat blood. A Y. pestis Ymt−mutant infected fleas nearly as well as the Ymt+ parent strain after feeding on bacteremic brown rat blood, and the mutant was transmitted efficiently by flea bite during the first weeks after infection. The protective function of Ymt correlated with red blood cell digestion kinetics in the flea gut. Thus, early Y. pestis strains that lacked Ymt could have been maintained in flea-brown rat transmission cycles, and perhaps in other hosts with similar blood characteristics. Acquisition of Ymt, however, served to greatly expand the range of hosts that could support flea-borne plague.

scholarly journals Yersinia pestis: the Natural History of Plague

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Barbieri ◽  
M. Signoli ◽  
D. Chevé ◽  
C. Costedoat ◽  
S. Tzortzis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Yersinia Pestis ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Contaminated Soils ◽  
Yersinia Pseudotuberculosis ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Point Of Care ◽  
Clonal Evolution ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Content Type

SUMMARY The Gram-negative bacterium Yersinia pestis is responsible for deadly plague, a zoonotic disease established in stable foci in the Americas, Africa, and Eurasia. Its persistence in the environment relies on the subtle balance between Y. pestis-contaminated soils, burrowing and nonburrowing mammals exhibiting variable degrees of plague susceptibility, and their associated fleas. Transmission from one host to another relies mainly on infected flea bites, inducing typical painful, enlarged lymph nodes referred to as buboes, followed by septicemic dissemination of the pathogen. In contrast, droplet inhalation after close contact with infected mammals induces primary pneumonic plague. Finally, the rarely reported consumption of contaminated raw meat causes pharyngeal and gastrointestinal plague. Point-of-care diagnosis, early antibiotic treatment, and confinement measures contribute to outbreak control despite residual mortality. Mandatory primary prevention relies on the active surveillance of established plague foci and ectoparasite control. Plague is acknowledged to have infected human populations for at least 5,000 years in Eurasia. Y. pestis genomes recovered from affected archaeological sites have suggested clonal evolution from a common ancestor shared with the closely related enteric pathogen Yersinia pseudotuberculosis and have indicated that ymt gene acquisition during the Bronze Age conferred Y. pestis with ectoparasite transmissibility while maintaining its enteric transmissibility. Three historic pandemics, starting in 541 AD and continuing until today, have been described. At present, the third pandemic has become largely quiescent, with hundreds of human cases being reported mainly in a few impoverished African countries, where zoonotic plague is mostly transmitted to people by rodent-associated flea bites.

Effective discrimination of Yersinia pestis and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis by MALDI-TOF MS using multivariate analysis

Talanta ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 122640
Author(s):  
Bin Feng ◽  
Liyuan Shi ◽  
Haipeng Zhang ◽  
Haimei Shi ◽  
Chuanfan Ding ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Multivariate Analysis ◽  
Yersinia Pestis ◽  
Yersinia Pseudotuberculosis ◽  
Maldi Tof Ms ◽  
Maldi Tof ◽  
Tof Ms

scholarly journals The Importance of the Small RNA Chaperone Hfq for Growth of Epidemic Yersinia pestis, but Not Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, with Implications for Plague Biology

2010 ◽  
Vol 192 (16) ◽  
pp. 4239-4245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guangchun Bai ◽  
Andrey Golubov ◽  
Eric A. Smith ◽  
Kathleen A. McDonough
Keyword(s):  
Yersinia Pestis ◽  
Small Rna ◽  
Small Rnas ◽  
Yersinia Pseudotuberculosis ◽  
Etiologic Agent ◽  
Growth Restriction ◽  
Rna Chaperone ◽  
Unique Biology ◽  
Severe Growth

ABSTRACT Yersinia pestis, the etiologic agent of plague, has only recently evolved from Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. hfq deletion caused severe growth restriction at 37°C in Y. pestis but not in Y. pseudotuberculosis. Strains from all epidemic plague biovars were similarly affected, implicating Hfq, and likely small RNAs (sRNAs), in the unique biology of the plague bacillus.

scholarly journals A quadruplex real-time PCR assay for the detection of Yersinia pestis and its plasmids

2008 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 324-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvin Stewart ◽  
Benjamin Satterfield ◽  
Marissa Cohen ◽  
Kim O'Neill ◽  
Richard Robison
Keyword(s):  
Yersinia Pestis ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Real Time Pcr ◽  
Yersinia Pseudotuberculosis ◽  
Target Sequence ◽  
Health Departments ◽  
Pcr Assay ◽  
Virulence Plasmids ◽  
Taqman Probes ◽  
Sporadic Disease

Yersinia pestis, the aetiological agent of the plague, causes sporadic disease in endemic areas of the world and is classified as a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Category A Priority Pathogen because of its potential to be used as a bioweapon. Health departments, hospitals and government agencies need the ability to rapidly identify and characterize cultured isolates of this bacterium. Assays have been developed to perform this function; however, they are limited in their ability to distinguish Y. pestis from Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. This report describes the creation of a real-time PCR assay using Taqman probes that exclusively identifies Y. pestis using a unique target sequence of the yihN gene on the chromosome. As with other Y. pestis PCR assays, three major genes located on each of the three virulence plasmids were included: lcrV on pCD1, caf1 on pMT1 and pla on pPCP1. The quadruplex assay was validated on a collection of 192 Y. pestis isolates and 52 near-neighbour isolates. It was discovered that only 72 % of natural plague isolates from the states of New Mexico and Utah harboured all three virulence plasmids. This quadruplex assay proved to be 100 % successful in differentiating Y. pestis from all near neighbours tested and was able to reveal which of the three virulence plasmids a particular isolate possessed.

scholarly journals Attenuated enzootic (pestoides) isolates of Yersinia pestis express active aspartase

Microbiology ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 155 (1) ◽  
pp. 198-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott W. Bearden ◽  
Christopher Sexton ◽  
Joshua Pare ◽  
Janet M. Fowler ◽  
Cindy G. Arvidson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Yersinia Pestis ◽  
Yersinia Pseudotuberculosis ◽  
Amino Acid Position ◽  
Enzymic Activity ◽  
Broad Host Range ◽  
Missense Mutations ◽  
Tissue Invasion ◽  
Muroid Rodents ◽  
Glucose 6 Phosphate Dehydrogenase ◽  
Reduced Activity

It is established that Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of bubonic plague, recently evolved from enteropathogenic Yersinia pseudotuberculosis by undergoing chromosomal degeneration while acquiring two unique plasmids that facilitate tissue invasion (pPCP) and dissemination by fleabite (pMT). Thereafter, plague bacilli spread from central Asia to sylvatic foci throughout the world. These epidemic isolates exhibit a broad host range including man as opposed to enzootic (pestoides) variants that remain in ancient reservoirs where infection is limited to muroid rodents. Cells of Y. pseudotuberculosis are known to express glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (Zwf) and aspartase (AspA); these activities are not detectable in epidemic Y. pestis due to missense mutations (substitution of proline for serine at amino position 155 of Zwf and leucine for valine at position 363 of AspA). In this study, functional Zwf was found in pestoides strains E, F and G but not seven other enzootic isolates; enzymic activity was associated with retention of serine at amino acid position 155. Essentially, full AspA activity occurred in pestoides isolates where valine (pestoides A, B, C and D) or serine (pestoides E, F, G and I) occupied position 363. Reduced activity occurred in strains Angola and A16, which contained phenylalanine at this position. The k cat but not K m of purified AspA from strain Angola was significantly reduced. In this context, aspA of the recently described attenuated enzootic microtus biovar encodes active valine at position 363, further indicating that functional AspA is a biomarker for avirulence of Y. pestis in man.

scholarly journals Identification of gmhA, a Yersinia pestis Gene Required for Flea Blockage, by Using a Caenorhabditis elegans Biofilm System

2005 ◽  
Vol 73 (11) ◽  
pp. 7236-7242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Creg Darby ◽  
Sandya L. Ananth ◽  
Li Tan ◽  
B. Joseph Hinnebusch
Keyword(s):  
Caenorhabditis Elegans ◽  
Yersinia Pestis ◽  
Biofilm Formation ◽  
Yersinia Pseudotuberculosis ◽  
C Elegans ◽  
Transposon Insertion ◽  
Insertion Mutants ◽  
Random Screening

ABSTRACT Yersinia pestis, the cause of bubonic plague, blocks feeding by its vector, the flea. Recent evidence indicates that blockage is mediated by an in vivo biofilm. Y. pestis and the closely related Yersinia pseudotuberculosis also make biofilms on the cuticle of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, which block this laboratory animal's feeding. Random screening of Y. pseudotuberculosis transposon insertion mutants with a C. elegans biofilm assay identified gmhA as a gene required for normal biofilms. gmhA encodes phosphoheptose isomerase, an enzyme required for synthesis of heptose, a conserved component of lipopolysaccharide and lipooligosaccharide. A Y. pestis gmhA mutant was constructed and was severely defective for C. elegans biofilm formation and for flea blockage but only moderately defective in an in vitro biofilm assay. These results validate use of the C. elegans biofilm system to identify genes and pathways involved in Y. pestis flea blockage.

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