What is the origin of Yersinia pestis?
What is the origin of Yersinia pestis?
Recent research, using a phylogenetic comparison of 17 Yersinia isolates from global sources, indicates that the causative bacterium, Yersinia pestis, originated in or near China and subsequently was transmitted by various routes, for example, via the Silk Road to West Asia and to Africa, to establish pandemics ( …
Is Yersinia pestis plasmid encoded?
Y. pestis pMT1 encoded potential genes with a high degree of similarity to a wide variety of organisms, plasmids, and bacteriophage. Accordingly, our analysis of the pMT1 DNA sequence emphasized the mosaic nature of this large bacterial virulence plasmid and provided implications as to its evolution.
What Agar does Yersinia pestis grow on?
Y. pestis will grow as small, non- lactose fermenting colonies on MAC or EMB agar.
What is Yersinia pestis scientific name?
Common Name: Bubonic Plague. Scientific Name: Yersinia pestis.
What disease is caused by Yersinia pestis?
Plague is a disease that affects humans and other mammals. It is caused by the bacterium, Yersinia pestis. Humans usually get plague after being bitten by a rodent flea that is carrying the plague bacterium or by handling an animal infected with plague.
What diseases are caused by Yersinia pestis?
Plague is caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, a zoonotic bacteria usually found in small mammals and their fleas. People infected with Y. pestis often develop symptoms after an incubation period of one to seven days. There are two main clinical forms of plague infection: bubonic and pneumonic.
How can Yersinia pestis be transmitted?
The plague bacteria, Yersinia pestis, is transmitted to humans through the bites of fleas that have previously fed on infected animals, such as: Rats. Mice. Squirrels.
Is Yersinia pestis harmful or helpful?
As Yersinia pestis can be easily obtained and cultured and is highly pathogenic for humans, it poses a serious threat of being used for bioterrorism purposes. Artificially created aerosol containing plague bacilli can cause numerous and almost simultaneous cases of primary pulmonic plague in an exposed population.
Why is the Black Death called the Black Death?
Rats traveled on ships and brought fleas and plague with them. Because most people who got the plague died, and many often had blackened tissue due to gangrene, bubonic plague was called the Black Death. A cure for bubonic plague wasn’t available.
What kind of bacteria is Yersinia pestis?
Yersinia pestis. Yersinia pestis (formerly Pasteurella pestis) is a Gram-negative, nonmotile, rod-shaped, coccobacillus bacteria, with no spores. It is a facultative anaerobic organism that can infect humans via the Oriental rat flea. It causes the disease plague, which takes three main forms: pneumonic, septicemic and bubonic plagues.
Why was Yersinia pestis detected on old teeth?
Researchers have also detected the Yersinia pestis organism on a 400 year old set of teeth. They performed this research because the lack of suitable infected material has prevented direct discovery of the plague, thus making the idea of a black plague hypothetical. “The durability of dental pulp,…
When did Alexandre Yersin discover Yersinia pestis?
Y. pestis was discovered in 1894 by Alexandre Yersin, a Swiss/French physician and bacteriologist from the Pasteur Institute, during an epidemic of the plague in Hong Kong.
What kind of bacteria has no spores or Gram?
Yersinia pestis (formerly Pasteurella pestis) is a Gram-negative, nonmotile, rod-shaped, coccobacillus bacterium, with no spores.