• In a new study, researchers examined the evolutionary trajectory of a lab-grown community of bacterium, Escherichia coli, having two interacting strains. (news-medical.net)
  • The disease is caused by a coccobacillus-shaped, gram negative bacterium referred to as Yersinia pestis . (medscape.com)
  • The virulence of this bacterium results from the 32 Y pestis chromosomal genes and two Y pestis -specific plasmids, constituting the only new genetic material acquired since its evolution from its predecessor. (medscape.com)
  • Despite its reputation as a scourge of antiquity, Yersinia pestis --the bacterium that causes bubonic plague-- still causes thousands of human illnesses every year . (scienceblogs.com)
  • Analysis revealed that both had died of the plague - caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis - and that the same strain had infected them. (cosmosmagazine.com)
  • A 1999 paper used a genetic analysis to conclude that Y. pestis had evolved from a related bacterium, Yersinia pseudotuberculosis , between 1500 and 20,000 years ago. (cosmosmagazine.com)
  • Some researchers have suggested that the epidemic was caused by a virus such as Ebola , but an analysis of DNA from a London plague pit seems to settle the argument in favour of the "plague" bacterium Yersinia pestis . (newscientist.com)
  • To pick out the signature of Y. pestis , Poinar's team took DNA from a modern strain and made a molecular "probe" that would bind to DNA from this type of bacterium. (newscientist.com)
  • A University of Chicago geneticist studying the genetics of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, may have died from exposure to a weakened strain he worked with in the laboratory. (the-scientist.com)
  • The disease is characterized by fever and swelling of the lymph nodes and caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis , which spreads via rodents carrying infected fleas. (ijpr.org)
  • The Black Death is believed to have been the result of plague caused by infection with the bacterium Yersinia pestis . (britannica.com)
  • Yersinia pestis is a gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae. (aboutdarwin.com)
  • Let's delve into the signs, symptoms, and conditions associated with Yersinia Pestis- a bacterium that is known to trigger serious illnesses. (aboutdarwin.com)
  • This article is part of an interesting epidemiological literature on the seasonality of medieval and early modern European plagues and the twentieth century outbreaks of plague caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium . (r-bloggers.com)
  • One study that she coauthored showed that the Y. pestis phylogenetic patterns parallel the documented Bronze Age human migrations, suggesting that the bacterium may have migrated with humans across Eurasia. (mpg.de)
  • Vicki Kramer] Yes, this is the same disease, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis . (cdc.gov)
  • Plague and Other Yersinia Infections Plague is caused by the gram-negative bacterium Yersinia pestis . (msdmanuals.com)
  • Yersinia pestis , the causative agent of bubonic and pneumonic plagues, has undergone detailed study at the molecular level. (asm.org)
  • When Y. pestis was first confirmed as the cause of bubonic plague during an 1894 outbreak in Hong Kong , most people assumed that we also now knew the cause of the 14th-century Black Death, and the later plague outbreaks that resurfaced periodically. (scienceblogs.com)
  • This strain has all the genetic components we know of that are needed for the bubonic form of the disease," she says. (cosmosmagazine.com)
  • Black Death, a kind of bubonic plague, is one of several strains of plague. (ijpr.org)
  • The lab also looked at variations of the gene Pla and discovered that a single modification only found in modern strains of Y. pestis was a critical adaptation for the bacteria to spread in the body and infect the lymph nodes, a form of the infection that causes bubonic plague. (phys.org)
  • According to Lathem, the surprising conclusion from this aspect of the study is that, contrary to current thinking in the field, Y. pestis may have first evolved as a respiratory pathogen before it could cause the more common form of disease, bubonic plague. (phys.org)
  • NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) - By sequencing two Late Bronze Age Yersinia pestis isolates, a team from Germany, Russia, China, and Switzerland has gleaned additional insights into the history of the notorious pathogen behind the bubonic plague. (genomeweb.com)
  • A phylogenetic analysis of the strains, set alongside 177 available modern and ancient Y. pestis sequences, suggested that they belonged to a previously undocumented lineage that emerged roughly 4,000 years ago, but already contained the virulence factors that set bubonic plague apart from more innocuous bacteria. (genomeweb.com)
  • The most famous of these strains was the bubonic plague, so-called because of the round, black buboes formed by the swelling of the victim's lymph nodes. (marxist.com)
  • This strain can still be found alive and well in parts of China to this day, with a suspected case of bubonic plague reported in Inner Mongolia as recently as July. (marxist.com)
  • The most well-known disease caused by Yersinia pestis is the Bubonic plague. (aboutdarwin.com)
  • In their 2009 article, Welford and Bossak added additional evidence and rigour to the argument that the difference in seasonality of peak deaths between the first two suspected bubonic plague pandemics and the Third Pandemic indicates a material difference in the diseases, whether it be a variation in Y. pestis itself, its mode and timing of transmission, or even the presence of an unknown human-to-human virus. (r-bloggers.com)
  • The main topics of her research included the investigation of the bacterium's diversity during the infamous historical plague epidemics as well as the discovery of important insights regarding the early stages of its evolution as an epidemic pathogen, including the oldest genome of strains causing bubonic plague. (mpg.de)
  • In addition, given that flea transmission is associated with the bubonic plague, this led to the hypothesis that Y. pestis was unable to cause this type of disease during prehistory. (mpg.de)
  • Marshall et al (1967) has described an asymptomatic pharyngeal carrier state of Y pestis infection in patients with bubonic plague. (medscape.com)
  • To further investigate the genomic diversity among this group and to help characterize lineages of the plague organism that have no sequenced members, we present here the genomes of two isolates of the "classical" antiqua biovar, strains Antiqua and Nepal516. (asm.org)
  • We compare all five currently sequenced Y. pestis genomes and the corresponding features in Yersinia pseudotuberculosis . (asm.org)
  • Here, we present the improved draft or finished assembled genomes from 11 strains isolated in the nation of Georgia and surrounding countries. (pacb.com)
  • By sequencing the genomes, we find that these ancient plague strains are basal to all known Yersinia pestis. (cam.ac.uk)
  • Bos and her colleagues retrieved Y. pestis remains from the corpses and sequenced the genomes. (cosmosmagazine.com)
  • Ancient Yersinia pestis genomes lack the virulence-associated YpfΦ prophage present in modern pandemic strains. (mpg.de)
  • Her thesis presents a systematic study of medieval Y. pestis genomes from epidemic sites in England, France, Germany, Russia, Spain and Switzerland spanning the time transect between the 14th and 17th centuries AD. (mpg.de)
  • Though today Y. pestis is known to be transmitted by fleas, those early genomes did not have the variants associated with flea transmission. (mpg.de)
  • Taxonomy browser (Yersinia pestis biovar Microtus str. (nih.gov)
  • The results presented here clearly demonstrate the differences between the two biovar antiqua lineages and support the notion that grouping Y. pestis strains based strictly on the classical definition of biovars (predicated upon two biochemical assays) does not accurately reflect the phylogenetic relationships within this species. (asm.org)
  • We found that MST differentiated every biovar in a collection of 36 Y. pestis isolates representative of the three biovars. (cdc.gov)
  • Genome sequences of Y. pestis strain CO92, a Orientalis biovar, and Y. pestis strain KIM, a Medievalis biovar, are now available ( 4 , 5 ), which provides an opportunity to examine them for differences associated with the biovar and for genotyping. (cdc.gov)
  • We, therefore, hypothesized that sequencing of several intergenic spacers would allow determination of a biovar-specific spacer pattern in Y. pestis . (cdc.gov)
  • We first demonstrated that MST allowed biovar genotyping of a large collection of Y. pestis isolates and further applied it to the dental pulp collected from persons whose deaths are attributed to the first and second pandemics. (cdc.gov)
  • We analyzed the complete genome sequences of Y. pestis strain CO92, biovar Orientalis (GenBank accession no. (cdc.gov)
  • NC-003143) ( 4 ) and Y. pestis strain KIM, biovar Medievalis (GenBank accession no. (cdc.gov)
  • Propagation of GntR regulog to Yersinia pestis biovar Medievalis str. (lbl.gov)
  • The biovar caucasica strains from Transcaucasian highland (# 4-6) and Pre-Araks (# 7) plague foci also contained the N149 allele. (usf.edu)
  • Considering that representatives of biovar caucasica were reported to be the reason of sporadic cases of human plague, this study supports the necessity of additional testing of globally disseminated YopT (S149) isoform as a potential target for treatment of plague caused by the strains producing different YopT isoforms. (usf.edu)
  • Y. pestis strains have historically been classified according to their ability to utilize glycerol and reduce nitrate and have been grouped into three main subtypes or biovars: antiqua, medievalis, and orientalis. (asm.org)
  • Thirty-five strains representative of the three Y. pestis biovars (11 Antiqua isolates, 12 Medievalis isolates, and 12 Orientalis isolates) isolated from 1947 to 1996 from various host species in 13 countries are presented in Table 1 . (cdc.gov)
  • [ 2 ] Three biovars (with minor genetic variations) have been identified within the Y pestis clone: Antiqua, Medievalis, and Orientalis. (medscape.com)
  • The family of Enterobacteriaceae comprises a multitude of pathogenic strains from the genera Salmonella , Yersinia , Klebsiella and Escherichia . (biomedcentral.com)
  • Our Y. pestis isolates from around 4,000 years ago possessed all the genetic characteristics required for efficient flea transmission of plague to rodents, humans, and other mammals," first author Maria Spyrou, an archaeogenetics researcher affiliated with Max Planck Institute and the University of Tübingen, said in a statement. (genomeweb.com)
  • 114 Y. pestis isolates were screened. (usf.edu)
  • Before then, the last known laboratory-acquired infection with Y. pestis bacteria in the United States occurred in 1959, the CDC report said. (nbcnews.com)
  • In a paper published in Nature Communications , Lathem and first author Daniel Zimbler, Ph.D., a Feinberg post-doctoral fellow, demonstrated how the acquisition of a single gene caused the shift of Y. pestis from causing a primarily gastrointestinal infection to a more serious and often fatal respiratory disease. (phys.org)
  • Lathem proposed that the bacteria's acquisition of the gene Pla enhanced its ability to cause infection in the lungs and was all that this ancestral strain of Y. pestis needed to produce a fatal lung infection. (phys.org)
  • They found the newly mutated strain had gained the ability to cause respiratory infection identically to modern strains of Y. pestis that cause disease today, demonstrating that the Pla gene was necessary for Y. pestis to infect the lungs. (phys.org)
  • Graves containing the remains of two men (aged between 30 and 45 years) are the first evidence of Yersinia pestis infection, the bacteria responsible for plague, in 14th-century Southern Italy, according to new research being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID). (eurekalert.org)
  • This regurgitation spreads Yersinia pestis into the new host - and thus begins infection. (aboutdarwin.com)
  • These bacteriophages appear to be most similar to bacteriophages that infect Pseudomonas and Ralstonia rather than Enterobacteriales bacteria by protein similarity, however, we were only able to detect infection of Erwinia and the closely related strains of Pantoea . (frontiersin.org)
  • This was reported as the sole presentation of Y pestis infection in 4 of 27 patients in a case series published in 1992. (medscape.com)
  • Though both strains belong to one of the three classical biovars, they represent separate lineages defined by recent phylogenetic studies. (asm.org)
  • It has been argued that each of the biovars was associated with one of the plague pandemics ( 14 , 20 , 34 ), and recent studies have tried to provide direct evidence of whether Y. pestis was associated with any of the historical pandemics ( 15 , 44 ). (asm.org)
  • A comparison of four virulent Y. pestis strains with the human-avirulent strain 91001 provides further insight into the genetic basis of virulence to humans. (asm.org)
  • The ysa locus is not found in Y. pestis or Y. pseudotuberculosis, nor in non- or low-pathogenic Y. enterocolitica strains. (usda.gov)
  • The causative agent, Yersinia pestis , primarily infects a wide range of rodents and is transmitted via flea vectors. (asm.org)
  • Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, is endemic to the Caucasus region but few reference strain genome sequences from that region are available. (pacb.com)
  • Spyrou's PhD dealt with the evolutionary history of the notorious bacterial pathogen Yersinia pestis , the causative agent of plague, during the last 5,000 years of human history. (mpg.de)
  • Lathem said the new research may explain how Y. pestis transitioned from causing only localized outbreaks of plague to the pandemic spread of Y. pestis such as the sixth century's Justinian Plague and the fourteenth century's Black Death. (phys.org)
  • Y. pestis is widely credited (if that's the word) for the 6th century Plague of Justinian, the mid 14th century Black Death, and the Third Pandemic from the mid nineteenth to mid twentieth centuries. (r-bloggers.com)
  • Both Gilbert and Poinar reckon the technique could uncover the full genetic sequence of the bacterial strain behind the Black Death, which could help explain both why it was so virulent and how it evolved - as well as whether similarly devastating strains might appear in future. (newscientist.com)
  • It is possible, however, that this particular strain was different than the CDC-approved strain or that Casadaban had underlying genetic or health conditions that made him. (the-scientist.com)
  • While studying Yersinia pestis , the bacteria responsible for epidemics of plague such as the Black Death, Wyndham Lathem, Ph.D., assistant professor in microbiology-immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, found a single small genetic change that fundamentally influenced the evolution of the deadly pathogen, and thus the course of human history. (phys.org)
  • Modern genetic analysis shows that the strain of Y. pestis introduced during the Black Death is the ancestor to all existing Y. pestis strains known to cause disease in humans. (britannica.com)
  • Starting with tooth samples from nine ancient individuals buried in a Russian tomb in the Smara region, Spyrou and colleagues identified two Y. pestis -infected individuals, who appeared to belong to the Srubnaya culture based on their own genetic profiles. (genomeweb.com)
  • When MST was applied to dental pulp collected from remains of eight persons who likely died in the first and second pandemics, this system identified original sequences that matched those of Y. pestis Orientalis. (cdc.gov)
  • Draft genome sequences of 13 Vibrio cholerae strains from the Rio Grande Delta. (mpg.de)
  • They used these sequences to create an evolutionary tree to map out the relationships between the strains and compare them to the strain from Chüy Valley. (ijpr.org)
  • For the new study, researchers used in-solution capture and deep Illumina shotgun sequencing to generate Y. pestis and human host sequences for a Bronze Age man known as RT5, producing more than 32-fold average coverage of that Y. pestis genome. (genomeweb.com)
  • Aerosolized Y pestis, causing primary pneumonic plague, has been recognized by bioterrorism experts as having one of the highest potentials as a bioterrorism agent due to its extremely high mortality, its high uptake into enzootic and epizootic animals as well as humans, and its ability to be spread over a large area. (medscape.com)
  • The team examined ancestral strains of the bacteria in mouse models to learn when Y. pestis gained the ability to infect the lungs and cause the severe form of the disease known as pneumonic plague . (phys.org)
  • In the most ancestral of all currently existing Y. pestis strains, they showed how the bacteria could successfully colonize the lungs but could not cause the severe disease associated with pneumonic plague. (phys.org)
  • The biggest difference they found between this strain and closely related strains that could cause pneumonic plague was a gene for the surface protein Pla. (phys.org)
  • At some point in the past, a single plague strain diversified into four different lineages. (ijpr.org)
  • In one of those lineages, the strain that caused Black Death evolved. (ijpr.org)
  • The study also raises new questions about the prevalence and historical spread of Y. pestis lineages, senior author Johannes Krause, director of archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and archaeological sciences researcher at the University of Tübingen, said in a statement. (genomeweb.com)
  • Because Y. pestis bacteria are naturally iron-deficient, the extra iron in the man may have fed the bacteria and caused them to become virulent, the report said. (nbcnews.com)
  • The next step was for the scientists to see how closely related the Chüy Valley strain was to Black Death and other plague strains. (ijpr.org)
  • Y pestis is a nonmotile, pleomorphic, gram-negative coccobacillus that is nonsporulating. (medscape.com)
  • Overlapping virulence-associated gene pools and the high overall genome plasticity often interferes with correct enterobacterial strain typing and risk assessment. (biomedcentral.com)
  • Escherichia coli str. (lbl.gov)
  • Researchers comparatively evaluated trends in AMR among urinary Escherichia coli strains from a private, commercial community-based laboratory and a public HB laboratory in the Illawarra Shoalhaven area located in NSW, Australia. (news-medical.net)
  • Although human disease is rare, Y. pestis is dangerous and highly infectious and thus has been identified as having potential for use in bioterrorism or as a biological weapon. (asm.org)
  • Yersinia pestis , a group A bioterrorism agent ( 1 ), causes plague, a reemerging zoonotic disease transmitted to humans through flea bites and typically characterized by the appearance of a tender and swollen lymph node, the bubo ( 2 ). (cdc.gov)
  • The ability for plague to be spread by aerosols makes Y pestis a potential agent of bioterrorism. (medscape.com)
  • A recombinant vaccine containing Fraction 1 antigen and V antigen of Y. pestis designed for first responders during a bioterrorism attack and military personnel was tested for safety and immunogenicity but was not licensed for use by the end of the decade. (bvsalud.org)
  • In addition, they found that no other changes to Y. pestis were required, even though the bacteria has continued to gain and lose genes over the last several thousand years. (phys.org)
  • We developed a DNA microarray for strain typing and detection of major antimicrobial resistance genes of clinically relevant enterobacteria. (biomedcentral.com)
  • Hinnebusch BJ, Rudolph AE, Cherepanov P, Dixon JE, Schwan TG, Forsberg A. Role of Yersinia murine toxin in survival of Yersinia pestis in the midgut of the flea vector. (medscape.com)
  • Transmission of Yersinia pestis from an infectious biofilm in the flea vector. (medscape.com)
  • A scanning electron microscope micrograph depicting a mass of Yersinia pestis bacteria in the foregut of an infected flea. (phys.org)
  • The consumed Yersinia pestis multiplies inside the flea and forms a plugged mass, which blocks its digestion. (aboutdarwin.com)
  • Through her research, Spyrou offered insights into the origin of flea-mediated transmission in Y. pestis . (mpg.de)
  • In Chile, although a sustained increase in CR- Kp infections has been observed, few strains have been described at the genomic level, lacking molecular details of their resistance and virulence determinants and the mobile elements mediating their dissemination. (biorxiv.org)
  • In addition, analysis of the Y. pestis genomic composition showed marked differences from modern and historical strains. (mpg.de)
  • Propagation of GlpR regulog to Shigella flexneri 2a str. (lbl.gov)
  • National laboratories are select laboratories, such as CDC and USAMRIID, that have unique resources to handle highly infectious agents and to identify specific strains of an agent. (cdc.gov)
  • Furthermore, E. coli K-12 strains such as strain MG1655 are well-known model organisms in genetics and molecular biology. (biomedcentral.com)
  • We found 453 single nucleotide polymorphisms in protein-coding regions, which were used to assess the evolutionary relationships of these Y. pestis strains. (asm.org)
  • Comparative sequence analysis elucidates the evolutionary patterns of Yersinia pestis in New Mexico over thirty-two years. (cdc.gov)
  • Antibiotic therapy of plague is hampered by the recent isolation of Yersinia pestis strain resistant to all of antibiotics recommended for cure. (usf.edu)
  • 8 ). Nucleic acid was extracted as previously described ( 9 ), and species identification was confirmed for all the strains by partial sequencing of the rpob gene ( 10 ). (cdc.gov)
  • Bacterial killing of Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains. (mpg.de)
  • The reference cited within is this paper , where the authors cast doubt on another group's finding of Y. pestis DNA in ancient corpses. (scienceblogs.com)
  • One reason for plague's reemergence may be global warming, which is ideal for increasing the prevalence of Y pestis in the host population. (medscape.com)
  • Here, we report the oldest direct evidence of Yersinia pestis identified by ancient DNA in human teeth from Asia and Europe dating from 2,800 to 5,000 years ago. (cam.ac.uk)
  • More recently, we've been able to test these claims, using paleomicrobiology to look for molecular evidence of Y. pestis in skeletons that presumably died of plague. (scienceblogs.com)
  • Y. pestis disappeared from Europe during the 18th century for reasons that are not well understood. (mpg.de)
  • Strains of different serological groups generally had different patterns, but those of serological groups 1, 2, 3 and 9 were identical. (microbiologyresearch.org)
  • The findings are the first confirmation that these Black Death victims were infected with Y. pestis , Poinar says. (newscientist.com)
  • Four teeth of the adults in the graves tested positive for Y. pestis, and were highly similar to previously investigated plague victims from other parts of Italy and had identical strains of Y. pestis. (eurekalert.org)
  • An entity may request the exclusion of an attenuated strain of a select agent or a select toxin modified to be less potent or toxic. (cdc.gov)
  • The Intragovernmental Select Agents and Toxins Technical Advisory Committee (ISATTAC) reviews the exclusion request by conducting a risk assessment to determine whether the attenuated strain or modified toxin has the potential to pose a severe risk to public health and safety. (cdc.gov)
  • Numerous OmpA-like membrane-spanning domains contribute to bacterial virulence by a variety of mechanisms such as binding to host cells or immune regulators such as Factor H. Notable examples include E. coli OmpA and Yersinia pestis Ail. (wikipedia.org)
  • The bacteria Yersinia pestis is the etiological agent of plague and has caused human pandemics with millions of deaths in historic times. (cam.ac.uk)
  • Yersinia pestis--etiologic agent of plague. (medscape.com)
  • As of December 2017, DSAT has excluded 50 strains of biological agents and 10 modified toxins from the select agent regulations. (cdc.gov)
  • notice with recommendations to add or remove specific BSATs or exclude a subset of BSAT strains or serotypes from the select agent list. (cdc.gov)
  • At the crossroads of epidemiology and biology: Bridging the gap between SARS-CoV-2 viral strain properties and epidemic wave characteristics. (cdc.gov)
  • Yersinia pestis is best known for its role in the Black Death , which killed a third of Europe's population in the 14th century. (newscientist.com)
  • However, there has been lingering resistance to the idea that Y. pestis actually caused the Black Death. (scienceblogs.com)
  • Basically, many of those advocating "not Y. pestis " pointed to differences in the epidemiology of the Black Death compared to modern outbreaks of Y. pestis . (scienceblogs.com)
  • At the time, the papers got press not necessarily because of what they explained, but because the ancient Y. pestis strains looked fairly ordinary --there was nothing obvious to suggest why, from the bacterial point of view, the Black Death was so deadly. (scienceblogs.com)
  • Two of the authors (SW and JM) have previously argued that the epidemiology, virulence, and population dynamics of the Black Death were too different from those factors of modern yersinial plague to have been caused by Y. pestis (13). (scienceblogs.com)
  • In the course of my ramblings through history, I recently came across Mark R. Welford and Brian H. Bossak Validation of Inverse Seasonal Peak Mortality in Medieval Plagues, Including the Black Death, in Comparison to Modern Yersinia pestis-Variant Diseases . (r-bloggers.com)
  • What's more, the researchers find that the strain from this region "gave rise to the majority of [modern plague] strains circulating in the world today," says Phil Slavin , co-author on the paper and a historian at the University of Stirling in Scotland. (ijpr.org)
  • Such use is contrary to international law and has rarely taken place during formal warfare in modern history, despite the extensive preparations and stockpiling of biological agents carried out during the 20th century by most major powers (including development of strains resistant to multiple drugs). (msdmanuals.com)
  • In light of the considerable distance between the two burial grounds, the researchers think it is likely that Y. pestis was widely spread across Bronze Age Britain. (newscientist.com)
  • No molecular biology-based method proved reliable and convenient for Y. pestis genotyping. (cdc.gov)
  • Because many strains of the following groups of microorganisms have been shown to be resistant to tetracyclines, culture and susceptibility testing are recommended. (rxlist.com)
  • Up to 44 percent of strains of Streptococcus pyogenes and 74 percent of Streptococcus faecalis have been found to be resistant to tetracycline drugs. (rxlist.com)
  • Multidrug-resistant (MDR) and hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae , particularly carbapenem-resistant strains (CR- Kp ) causing high mortality and morbidity, are critical concerns[ 1 ]. (biorxiv.org)
  • One of the outbreaks was caused by a streptomycin-resistant strain of Yersinia pestis. (bvsalud.org)