Publication Date:
1996-07-19
Description:
Yersinia pestis, the cause of bubonic plague, is transmitted by the bites of infected fleas. Biological transmission of plague depends on blockage of the foregut of the flea by a mass of plague bacilli. Blockage was found to be dependent on the hemin storage (hms) locus. Yersinia pestis hms mutants established long-term infection of the flea's midgut but failed to colonize the proventriculus, the site in the foregut where blockage normally develops. Thus, the hms locus markedly alters the course of Y. pestis infection in its insect vector, leading to a change in blood-feeding behavior and to efficient transmission of plague.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Hinnebusch, B J -- Perry, R D -- Schwan, T G -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1996 Jul 19;273(5273):367-70.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Laboratory of Microbial Structure and Function, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Hamilton, MT 59840, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8662526" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Bacterial Adhesion
;
Digestive System/microbiology
;
Female
;
*Genes, Bacterial
;
Hemin/*metabolism
;
Insect Vectors/*microbiology
;
Male
;
Mutation
;
Plague/*transmission
;
Proventriculus/microbiology
;
Siphonaptera/*microbiology
;
Virulence
;
Yersinia pestis/genetics/growth & development/metabolism/*pathogenicity
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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