y. pestis

Delving into the Diversity of The Plague of Justinian

Posted on by Sara Klink

Wayson stain of Yersinia pestis showing the characteristic
Yersinia pestis. U.S. Center for Disease Control [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Human teeth play a key role in our understanding of how organisms evolve. Whenever a possible new member of the hominid family is uncovered, the shape and number of teeth are used to place that individual in the family tree. Teeth also harbor information about pathogens that have plagued humans for millennia. Because bacteria use our bloodstream as a transport system, protected places that can preserve DNA—like the pulp of teeth—are a rich medium for uncovering information about humans and the microbes that infected them.

Teeth have been the choice for identifying the infectious agent behind the Plague of Justinian in the sixth century and the Black Plague in the 14th century. In fact, Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for these plagues, has infected humans as far back as the Neolithic. But what can we learn about the pandemic strain or strains of Y. pestis described in historical records? A team of researchers from Europe and the US, many of whom have been delving into the history of Y. pestis for the last decade, wanted to further investigate the Plague of Justinian. They studied bacterial DNA extracted from human remains found in Western European communal graves that were dated to around 541–750, the period of the historically documented Plague of Justinian. Their investigation examined the bacteria’s diversity and how far it spread during this “First Pandemic” of plague. Continue reading “Delving into the Diversity of The Plague of Justinian”

Yersinia pestis Reveals More Secrets From the Grave

Posted on by Sara Klink

Yersinia pestis. By A.Myasnikov for Wiki (Self made work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
Fridays are generally reserved for fun posts to share prior to the weekend. As we all know, fun is relative and to me, the latest news about how long Yersinia pestis has been entwined with human history is intriguing. I enjoy writing about the latest historical finding of Y. pestis even if I do earn a black reputation among my blogging colleagues (pun intended). Therefore, as soon as I saw the Cell article about Y. pestis found in Bronze age human teeth, I knew my blog topic was at hand.

Y. pestis has long been suspected in several plagues that occurred in the last two millennia. Publications in 2011 and 2013 used DNA extracted from teeth of human remains dated to the 14th century Black Death and 6th century Plague of Justinian to confirm Y. pestis was the causative agent in those devastating plagues. These results beg the question: How long has Y. pestis been infecting humans? The phylogenic trees generated from recent studies suggested Y. pestis has been with humans for as little as 2,600 years and as long as and 28,000 years. Equipped with these DNA-based tools, Rasmussen et al. asked if they could find evidence of Y. pestis in older human remains. Continue reading “Yersinia pestis Reveals More Secrets From the Grave”

Tracking the Beginning of a Pathogenic Bacterial Infection

Posted on by Sara Klink

Yersinia pestis by U.S. Center for Disease Control [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Understanding the course of a pathogenic infection involves not only understanding what ultimately kills the host or how the bacterium or virus enters the body but also how it establishes itself in the host organism. What is the receptor that allows a virus to enter the cell? Which cells does a bacterium first target or how does it evade an immune response? While other studies of bacteria like Yersina pestis have looked at imaging the bacterial burden in model mice, questions remain about how this bacterium gets from the skin after an infected flea bites to the draining lymph nodes, where the bacteria replicate and enter the bloodstream and infection becomes fatal. A recent PLOS Pathogens article examined how the nonmotile Y. pestis disseminated itself starting from a tiny innoculation mimicking a flea bite on a mouse ear and following pathogen interaction with the host from skin to lymph node. Continue reading “Tracking the Beginning of a Pathogenic Bacterial Infection”

Ancient Samples Confirm the Cause of the 6th Century Plague Pandemic

Posted on by Sara Klink

Yersinia pestis by A.Myasnikov for Wiki (Self made work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
When I started writing about research on Yersinia pestis and the Black Death, I was amazed at the ability to recover 14th century bacterial DNA from human remains, show Y. pestis was the caustive agent of the Black Death and then sequence the strain to compare to modern Y. pestis strains. The publications I read always mentioned the three waves of pandemics that devastated human populations in the introduction, and the Black Death was not the oldest one. The putative first pandemic was the Plague of Justinian in the 6th century, named after the Byzantine emperor. Like with the Black Death, there is debate about whether Y. pestis is the causative agent of the Plague of Justinian. The research published in PLOS Pathogens built on earlier work to isolate and genotype the suspected Y. pestis causative agent from human remains in 6th century graves, but this time with more stringent protocols enacted to answer critics who questioned the authenticity of earlier results. Continue reading “Ancient Samples Confirm the Cause of the 6th Century Plague Pandemic”