It causes the disease plague, which takes three main forms. At the time, a plague outbreak was occurring in hong kong, and the japanese bacteriologist kitasato shibasaburo was also working to identify the cause of plague. Yersinia pestis biofilm in the flea vector and its role in the. Researchers tested more than 500 ancient bone samples and ultimately recovered complete yersinia pestis genomes from six human skeletons, dating from late. Yersinia pestis bacteria transmission, symptoms, diagnosis.
Molecular darwinian evolution of virulence in yersinia pestis ncbi. Yersinia pestisetiologic agent of plague clinical microbiology. Pdf various types of animal models of plague have been developed, including. Bergeys manual of determinative bacteriology, 9th ed. Plague has caused several major epidemics in europe and asia over the last 2,000 years. As with extracellular polysaccharide production in many other bacteria, synthesis of the. Plague is an ancient, serious, infectious disease which is still endemic in regions of the modern world and is a potential biothreat agent. Yersinia pestis is a gramnegative bacterium 118, typically transmitted to humans via a bite from a flea that had previously fed on an infected rodent 119. The etiologic agent of plague, yersinia pestis, is a gram negative. Yersinia pestis formerly pasteurella pestis is a gramnegative, nonmotile, rodshaped, coccobacillus bacteria, with no spores.
Here we add to our original analysis of the yersinia pestis strain implicated in the black death by consolidating our dataset for 18 modern genomes with single nucleotide. It can be a life threatening infection if not treated promptly. This pesky pathogen was discovered by alexandre yersin who was working at the pasteur institute. Yersinia pestis survival and replication in potential ameba. Yersinia pestis is a gramnegative, nonmotile, nonsporeforming coccobacillus that is also a facultative anaerobe 1. Plague has most famously been called the black death because it can cause skin sores that form black scabs. Placing the plague of justinian in the yersinia pestis phylogenetic context duration. All three are caused by the bacterium yersinia pestis, a rodshaped coccobacillus.
Pdf yersinia pestis is the cause of plague, an illness that may manifest in bubonic, pneumonic, or septicemic form. This plaguecausing bacterium has been affecting people for at least 5,000 years. Usually, these aggregates are freefloating in the lumen of the midgut, unattached to a substrate. Pdf pathology and pathogenesis of yersinia pestis researchgate. The natural history and incidence of yersinia pestis and. Yersinia pestis is a zoonotic bacteria that causes plague or the black death during medieval times, that is most commonly transmitted through fleas that feed on infected rodents. It is a facultative anaerobic organism that can infect humans via the oriental rat flea. It is a highly remarkable model for the understanding of pathogenic bacteria evolution, and a major concern for public health as highlighted by recent human outbreaks.
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