YERSINIA PESTISFormerly Pasteurella pestis

What is Yersinia pestis?

GOOD QUESTION!

This

End of slideshow, click to exit

• Gram negative

• Coccobacillus

• Obligate intracellular pathogen

• Fermentative

• A facultative anaerobe

• Non-motile inside of host but motile when isolated. (different!)

It is

NOT SO INTERESTING BUT FUNDATORY HISTORY

Yersinia pestis was discovered in Hong Kong in 1894 by a Swiss physician

Alexandre Yersin during the Chinese epidemic of plague!

Y. Pestis interacts with mostly rodents and fleas.

This is how it is able to invade humans and create

Diseases

Bubonic PlaguePneumonic Plague

Y. Pestis inside flea

• Sudden high fever

• Swelling of lymph glands

• Chills

• “General Discomfort”

• Muscular pain

• Headaches

• Seizures

Symptoms of Bubonic PLague

SYMPTOMS OF Pneumonic Plague

• Trouble Breathing• Chest pain• Cough• Fever• Headache• General Weakness• Bloody saliva and mucus

Y. Pesits

INFECTION CYCLE

Flea feeding off blood

Blood meal

Direct Contact

Resevoir

Vector

Victim

Techinally True, if you eat mice.

IN ITS PNEUMONIC FORM,

Human – human transmission

Cough/sneeze

INFECTEDMAN

HEALTHY MAN

Fun overviewBUBONIC PLAGUE

Entry (inflected flea bite)

Spread (Lymphatic & systemic)

Disease

Exit (highly contagious)

PNEUMONIC PLAGUE

Exit (airborne)

Disease

Entry (airborne)

HOW TO NOT GET INFECTED• Don’t touch dead rodents

• Don’t eat/roll around in live rodents

• COOK your meat correctly

• Use bug repellent for fleas with DEET or permethrin

• Treat pets for fleas

• Wear long sleeves

• Give money to vaccine researchers BECAUSE THERE ISNT a vaccine YET

• Avoid the sick

BIOLOGICAL WARFARE

•1347- Plague victims catapulted by mongols.

1940- Japanese plane releasing rice and rat fleas containing Y. pestis

You guys didn’t read the article

ProteaseNo

Protease

Fas-FasL Signalli

ng

Caspase-3

Mutant Wild Type

WORKS CITED

Caulfield, A., Walker, M., Gielda, L., Lathem, W. (2014) The Pla Protease of Yersinia pestis Degrades Fas Ligand to Manipulate

Host Cell Death and Inflammation. Cell Host and Microbe 15(4) (424-434)"Plague." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention, 28 Nov. 2012. Web. 14 July 2014.

•ANY QUESTIONS?