Genome plasticity in Yersinia pestis The GenBank accession numbers for the sequences reported in this paper can be found in Table 1 T1 ; the GenBank accession number for DFR4 is AF426171.

Radnedge, Lyndsay; Agron, Peter G.; Worsham, Patricia L.; Andersen, Gary L.

doi:10.1099/00221287-148-6-1687

Cited by 72 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…We infer that these molecular grouping represent distinct bacterial populations. Independent support for the existence of these populations also can be deduced from other molecular analyses, which have examined subsets of the diversity examined here (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Based on a correlation between the current geographical sources of the biovars and the inferred sources of historical plague, Devignat (2) suggested that Antiqua caused Justinian's plague and Medievalis caused the Black Death. Each of the biovars seems to be distinct according to the genomic patterns of IS100 insertion elements, supernumerary DNA islands, or multilocus variable number of tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8). However, direct evidence uniquely associating any of the biovars with historical plague is lacking.…”

Section: P Lague Decimated the Human Population Of Europe And Northmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Microevolution and history of the plague bacillus, Yersinia pestis

Achtman

Morelli

Zhu

et al. 2004

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

483

373

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The association of historical plague pandemics with Yersinia pestis remains controversial, partly because the evolutionary history of this largely monomorphic bacterium was unknown. The microevolution of Y. pestis was therefore investigated by three different multilocus molecular methods, targeting genomewide synonymous SNPs, variation in number of tandem repeats, and insertion of IS100 insertion elements. Eight populations were recognized by the three methods, and we propose an evolutionary tree for these populations, rooted on Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. The tree invokes microevolution over millennia, during which enzootic pestoides isolates evolved. This initial phase was followed by a binary split 6,500 years ago, which led to populations that are more frequently associated with human disease. These populations do not correspond directly to classical biovars that are based on phenotypic properties. Thus, we recommend that henceforth groupings should be based on molecular signatures. The age of Y. pestis inferred here is compatible with the dates of historical pandemic plague. However, it is premature to infer an association between any modern molecular grouping and a particular pandemic wave that occurred before the 20th century.insertion element ͉ SNP ͉ variable number tandem repeats ͉ pandemic ͉ molecular clock

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: P Lague Decimated the Human Population Of Europe And Northmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microevolution and history of the plague bacillus, Yersinia pestis

Achtman

Morelli

Zhu

et al. 2004

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

483

373

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It is possible, therefore, that recombination between these sequence elements is responsible for other deletions in the Yersinia chromosome with less obvious in vitro phenotypes. A recent subtractive hybridization study by Radnedge et al (2002) identified six chromosomal regions of Y. pestis that varied between strains. Four of these six difference regions (DFRs) were associated with flanking-insertion sequences or other repeats.…”

Section: ‫3מ‬mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Genetic analysis of these two Yersinia species provides an excellent opportunity to study how new and highly virulent pathogens evolve. To date, the acquisition of two plasmids (pMT1/pFra and pPCP1/pPla) and some small regions of chromosomal DNA have been identified as specific for the Y. pestis subspecies of Y. pseudotuberculosis (Ferber and Brubaker 1981;Parkhill et al 2001;Deng et al 2002;Radnedge et al 2002). Apart from the plasmid-encoded Ymt protein on pMT1 that has been shown to be necessary for the colonization of fleas (Hinnebusch et al 2002), little else is known about the genetic basis of the recent change in host adaptation and virulence.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of DNA Microarrays to Study the Evolutionary Genomics of Yersinia pestis and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis

Hinchliffe¹,

Isherwood²,

Stabler³

et al. 2003

Genome Res.

158

151

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Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, diverged from Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, an enteric pathogen, an estimated 1500–20,000 years ago. Genetic characterization of these closely related organisms represents a useful model to study the rapid emergence of bacterial pathogens that threaten mankind. To this end, we undertook genome-wide DNA microarray analysis of 22 strains of Y. pestis and 10 strains of Y. pseudotuberculosis of diverse origin. Eleven Y. pestis DNA loci were deemed absent or highly divergent in all strains of Y. pseudotuberculosis. Four were regions of phage origin, whereas the other seven included genes encoding a vitamin B12 receptor and the insect toxin sepC. Sixteen differences were identified between Y. pestis strains, with biovar Antiqua and Mediaevalis strains showing most divergence from the arrayed CO92 Orientalis strain. Fifty-eight Y. pestis regions were specific to a limited number of Y. pseudotuberculosis strains, including the high pathogenicity island, three putative autotransporters, and several possible insecticidal toxins and hemolysins. The O-antigen gene cluster and one of two possible flagellar operons had high levels of divergence between Y. pseudotuberculosis strains. This study reports chromosomal differences between species, biovars, serotypes, and strains of Y. pestis and Y. pseudotuberculosis that may relate to the evolution of these species in their respective niches.

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“…The presence of a conserved ExxxE motif (reported as binding Fe 3+ ) in PmrB (Wosten et al, 2000) perfectly illustrates this point. ZraS and ZraR (previously referred to as HydH and HydG) were found only in Y. pseudotuberculosis (1) and in partially sequenced strains of the Y. pestis biovar Antiqua (Radnedge et al, 2002). It is noteworthy that Yersinia ZraS differs from its E. coli counterpart by an insertion of over one hundred amino acids containing a putative PAS domain, which is found in many TCS sensor subunits (for review, see Taylor and Zhulin, 1999).…”

Section: Sigma and Anti-sigma Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transcriptional Regulation inYersinia: An UpdateYersinia: An Update

2005

Current Issues in Molecular Biology

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In response to the ever-present need to adapt to environmental stress, bacteria have evolved complex (and often overlapping) regulatory networks that respond to various changes in growth conditions, including entry into the host. The expression of most bacterial virulence factors is regulated; thus the question of how bacteria orchestrate this process has become a recurrent research theme for every bacterial pathogen, and the three pathogenic Yersinia are no exception. The earliest studies of regulation in these species were prompted by the characterization of plasmid-encoded virulence determinants, and those conducted since have continued to focus on the principal aspects of virulence in these pathogens. Most Yersinia virulence factors are thermally regulated, and are active at either 28°C (the optimal growth temperature) or 37°C (the host temperature). However, regulation by this omnipresent thermal stimulus occurs through a wide variety of mechanisms, which generally act in conjunction with (or are modulated by) additional controls for other environmental cues such as pH, ion concentration, nutrient availability, osmolarity, oxygen tension and DNA damage. Yersinia's recent entry into the genome sequencing era has given scientists the opportunity to study these regulators on a genome-wide basis. This has prompted the first attempts to establish links between the presence or absence of regulatory elements and the three pathogenic species' respective lifestyles and degrees of virulence. IntroductionCompared to cells of multicellular organisms, microorganisms face a significant additional challenge: they encounter a wide array of sudden, intense and sometimes even life-threatening environmental changes, and must therefore rapidly modify their structure and metabolism accordingly. Although other mechanisms exist, these changes in bacterial physiology mainly occur by regulating the production of the appropriate structural proteins and enzymes. Adaptation of gene expression in response to such situations appears to be essential for bacterial survival, and thus the regulators involved in these processes should be treated as being as important as the effectors themselves. In bacterial pathogens like those of the Yersinia genus, most outside-to-inside stressinduced responses lead to changes in the expression of virulence factors. In fact, most of the known Yersinia virulence genes are regulated, and elements controlling their expression are thus also virulence factors.All regulatory systems have a common purpose: to create an interface between the perception of one or several stimuli and to activate or repress expression of their cognate effectors. As we will see by reviewing what is known about Yersinia, the means used to regulate the production of a given bacterial factor range from very simple mechanisms (where the DNA-binding properties of the transcriptional regulator are directly altered by the stimulus) to extremely complex systems which sometimes require lengthy signal transduction cascades and/or simul...

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Genome plasticity in Yersinia pestis The GenBank accession numbers for the sequences reported in this paper can be found in Table 1 T1 ; the GenBank accession number for DFR4 is AF426171.

Cited by 72 publications

References 33 publications

Microevolution and history of the plague bacillus, Yersinia pestis

Microevolution and history of the plague bacillus, Yersinia pestis

Application of DNA Microarrays to Study the Evolutionary Genomics of Yersinia pestis and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis

Transcriptional Regulation inYersinia: An UpdateYersinia: An Update

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