Evolution of <I>Yersinia pestis</I> as the Causative Agent of a Vector-Borne Disease Transmitted by Arthropods

Abstract

The review summarizes the data of modern domestic and foreign studies on the mechanisms of evolutionary adaptation of the plague pathogen to transmissive spread by arthropods. The data on the molecular basis of the rapid formation of a highly pathogenic bacterium due to the acquisition of new genetic information; structural and functional changes in the genome, causing the disruption of functionality of some genes that prevent survival in the vector are presented. The stage of the complex life cycle of the pathogen associated with the peculiarities of its stay in the vector’s organism and its tactics of evasion from the action of antibacterial substances formed by the flea is considered. The importance of biofilm formation for effective transmission of the pathogen is discussed. A complex cascade of transcriptional regulators of biofilm in Yersinia pestis is considered, which includes activators and repressors of biofilm formation, as well as regulators of synthesis or modification/transport of exopolysaccharide. The hms-dependent mechanism of biofilm formation in Y. pestis is described in detail, as well as the impact on biofilm formation through the regulation of LPS-related genes and its role in the modification and transport of biofilm exopolysaccharide. The data from our own studies on the variability of genes involved in biofilm formation in the main subspecies of the plague pathogen in comparison with non-main subspecies of the plague pathogen, as well as on the ability of strains of different subspecies to form biofilm not only in the proventriculus of the flea, but also on the cuticle of soil nematodes of the Tylenchida and Rhabditida orders and the genus Panagrolaimus are presented. The latter allows us to assume the possible participation of soil and entomoparasitic nematodes in the removal of Y. pestis biofilms from the soil to the above-ground biocoenosis of the natural plague focus.