Our Yersinia pestis research
Introduction
If extremely high host mortality rates and rapid spread are considered important traits that make a ‘good’ pathogen, then Y. pestis occupies a very prominent place in the history of microbiology and is arguably the most destructive infectious disease known to mankind. As the causative agent of plague, Y. pestis has claimed many millions of lives in periodic pandemics and has been documented as far back as ca 200 BCE in early Chinese records. The first accurately recorded pandemic was the plague of Justinian (541–542 AD), which spread rapidly from Egypt throughout the Byzantine Empire with up to 80-100 million deaths being considered an accurate estimate. Through a series of later pandemics, including the Black Death (14th-17th century) this devastating disease was steeped in folklore and mystery and could easily be responsible for influencing human history and civilisation, possibly to a greater extent than any other pathogen. Today the World Health Organisation considers plague as ‘re-emerging’ and since the early 1990s, plague has returned to disparate places on the globe including India, Zambia, Mozambique, Algeria and China with a general shift in its global footprint from Asia to Africa.
Y. pestis is a highly adaptable primary human pathogen which has only recently (1,500 to 20,000 years) evolved from its near identical precursor, Yersinia pseudotuberculosis with approximately 98% identity at the DNA level. Infections present as bubonic, pneumonic or septicaemic plague with extremely high mortality rates, in the case of primary pulmonary plague this can approach 100% if untreated, and up to 50% following the use of appropriate antibiotics. Person-to-person pneumonic plague is rare but highly infectious with 10 to 100 bacteria being sufficient to cause infection. Infection can also be through oral, intradermal, subcutaneous, or intravenous routes with transmission greatly exacerbated because Y. pestis is a zoonotic infection of many rodent species.
The University of Nottingham Yersinia research group is one of only two UK groups, and the only non-governmental group with approval to conduct plague research. We are also the only group in the UK that has approval to conduct plague research with fully pathogenic plague strains in haematophagous insects.
Research areas:
The molecular genetic mechanisms which control virulence.
The role of the virulence plasmid in infection.
The molecular basis to how Y. pestis colonises insects.
Climatic modelling of historical plague outbreaks.
If extremely high host mortality rates and rapid spread are considered important traits that make a ‘good’ pathogen, then Y. pestis occupies a very prominent place in the history of microbiology and is arguably the most destructive infectious disease known to mankind. As the causative agent of plague, Y. pestis has claimed many millions of lives in periodic pandemics and has been documented as far back as ca 200 BCE in early Chinese records. The first accurately recorded pandemic was the plague of Justinian (541–542 AD), which spread rapidly from Egypt throughout the Byzantine Empire with up to 80-100 million deaths being considered an accurate estimate. Through a series of later pandemics, including the Black Death (14th-17th century) this devastating disease was steeped in folklore and mystery and could easily be responsible for influencing human history and civilisation, possibly to a greater extent than any other pathogen. Today the World Health Organisation considers plague as ‘re-emerging’ and since the early 1990s, plague has returned to disparate places on the globe including India, Zambia, Mozambique, Algeria and China with a general shift in its global footprint from Asia to Africa.
Y. pestis is a highly adaptable primary human pathogen which has only recently (1,500 to 20,000 years) evolved from its near identical precursor, Yersinia pseudotuberculosis with approximately 98% identity at the DNA level. Infections present as bubonic, pneumonic or septicaemic plague with extremely high mortality rates, in the case of primary pulmonary plague this can approach 100% if untreated, and up to 50% following the use of appropriate antibiotics. Person-to-person pneumonic plague is rare but highly infectious with 10 to 100 bacteria being sufficient to cause infection. Infection can also be through oral, intradermal, subcutaneous, or intravenous routes with transmission greatly exacerbated because Y. pestis is a zoonotic infection of many rodent species.
The University of Nottingham Yersinia research group is one of only two UK groups, and the only non-governmental group with approval to conduct plague research. We are also the only group in the UK that has approval to conduct plague research with fully pathogenic plague strains in haematophagous insects.
Research areas:
The molecular genetic mechanisms which control virulence.
The role of the virulence plasmid in infection.
The molecular basis to how Y. pestis colonises insects.
Climatic modelling of historical plague outbreaks.