Affiliation:
1. National Reference Laboratory, and WHO Collaborating Center for Yersinia, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France.
Abstract
Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, has been responsible for at least three pandemics. During the last pandemic, which started in Hong Kong in 1894, the microorganism colonized new, previously unscathed geographical areas where it has become well established. The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate the genetic stability of Y. pestis strains introduced into a new environment just under a century ago and to follow the epidemiology of any new genetic variant detected. In the present study, 187 strains of Y. pestis isolated between 1939 and 1996 from different regions of Madagascar and responsible mainly for human cases of bubonic and pneumonic plague were studied. Our principal genotyping method was rRNA gene profiling (ribotyping), which has previously been shown to be an effective scheme for typing Y. pestis strains of different geographical origins. We report that all studied Y. pestis strains isolated in Madagascar before 1982 were of classical ribotype B, the ribotype attributed to the Y. pestis clone that spread around the world during the third pandemic. In 1982, 1983, and 1994, strains with new ribotypes, designated R, Q, and T, respectively, were isolated on the high-plateau region of the island. Analysis of other genotypic traits such as the NotI genomic restriction profiles and the EcoRV plasmid restriction profiles revealed that the new variants could also be distinguished by specific genomic and/or plasmid profiles. A follow-up of these new variants indicated that strains of ribotypes Q and R have become well established in their ecosystem and have a tendency to spread to new geographical areas and supplant the original classical strain.
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Reference25 articles.
1. A rapid alkaline extraction procedure for screening recombinant plasmid DNA;Birnboim H. C.;Nucleic Acids Res.,1979
2. Contribution de l'histoire à la compréhension de l'épidé- miologie de la peste à Madagascar;Blanchy S.;His. Sci. Med.,1995
3. Clamped homogeneous electric fields (CHEF) gel-electrophoresis of DNA restriction fragments for comparing genomic variations among strains of Yersinia enterocolitica and Yersinia spp. Zentralbl. Bakteriol. Parasitenkd;Buchrieser C.;Infektionskr. Hyg. Abt. 1 Orig.,1994
4. .Carniel E. Personal communication.
5. Molecular cloning, iron-regulation and mutagenesis of the irp2 gene encoding HMWP2, a protein specific for the highly pathogenic;Carniel E.;Yersinia. Mol. Microbiol.,1992
Cited by
82 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献