ArticlePLoS pathogens2018
Infectious blood source alters early foregut infection and regurgitative transmission of Yersinia pestis by rodent fleas.
Article in PLoS pathogens, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers.
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Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 50 citations in OpenAlex.
- Environmental and Host Blood Interactions ShapePathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Experimental evidence of early-phase transmission of Yersinia pestis by Synopsyllus fonquerniei and Xenopsylla brasiliensis.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2026Article
- Plasma albumin contributes to early Yersinia pestis survival at the onset of flea infection.PLoS pathogens · 2026Article
- New mitogenomic evidence for the phylogeny of Siphonaptera: insights fromFrontiers in veterinary science · 2026Article
- Diet has minimal effect onApplied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Interaction of Bacteria and Fleas, Focusing on the Plague Bacterium-A Review.Microorganisms · 2025Review
- Rodent-Borne Parasites and Human Disease: A Growing Public Health Concern.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Review
- Establishing a laboratory colony of the human flea, Pulex irritans: methods for collecting, rearing, and feeding.Parasites & vectors · 2025Article
- An insight into the draft genome of the Oriental rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis, together with its Wolbachia endosymbiont.BMC genomics · 2025Article
- Transovarial transmission of Yersinia pestis in its flea vector Xenopsylla cheopis.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Role of themBio · 2024Article
- Molecular Surveillance ofArchives of Razi Institute · 2024Article
- Transovarial transmission of Yersinia pestis in its flea vector, Xenopsylla cheopis.Research square · 2023Article
- A frameshift ineLife · 2023Article
- Article
- A Role for Early-Phase Transmission in the Enzootic Maintenance of Plague.PLoS pathogens · 2022Article
- Reevaluation of the Role of Blocked Oropsylla hirsuta Prairie Dog Fleas (Siphonaptera: Ceratophyllidae) in Yersinia pestis (Enterobacterales: Enterobacteriaceae) Transmission.Journal of medical entomology · 2022Article
- Exploring and Mitigating Plague for One Health Purposes.Current tropical medicine reports · 2022Article
- Acquisition of yersinia murine toxin enabled Yersinia pestis to expand the range of mammalian hosts that sustain flea-borne plague.PLoS pathogens · 2021Article
- Poor vector competence of the human flea, Pulex irritans, to transmit Yersinia pestis.Parasites & vectors · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Fleas can transmit Yersinia pestis by two mechanisms, early-phase transmission (EPT) and biofilm-dependent transmission (BDT). Transmission efficiency varies among flea species and the results from different studies have not always been consistent. One complicating variable is the species of rodent blood used for the infectious blood meal. To gain insight into the mechanism of EPT and the effect that host blood has on it, fleas were fed bacteremic mouse, rat, guinea pig, or gerbil blood; and the location and characteristics of the infection in the digestive tract and transmissibility of Y. pestis were assessed 1 to 3 days after infection. Surprisingly, 10-28% of two rodent flea species fed bacteremic rat or guinea pig blood refluxed a portion of the infected blood meal into the esophagus within 24 h of feeding. We term this phenomenon post-infection esophageal reflux (PIER). In contrast, PIER was rarely observed in rodent fleas fed bacteremic mouse or gerbil blood. PIER correlated with the accumulation of a dense mixed aggregate of Y. pestis, red blood cell stroma, and oxyhemoglobin crystals that filled the proventriculus. At their next feeding, fleas with PIER were 3-25 times more likely to appear partially blocked, with fresh blood retained within the esophagus, than were fleas without PIER. Three days after feeding on bacteremic rat blood, groups of Oropsylla montana transmitted significantly more CFU than did groups infected using mouse blood, and this enhanced transmission was biofilm-dependent. Our data support a model in which EPT results from regurgitation of Y. pestis from a partially obstructed flea foregut and that EPT and BDT can sometimes temporally overlap. The relative insolubility of the hemoglobin of rats and Sciurids and the slower digestion of their blood appears to promote regurgitative transmission, which may be one reason why these rodents are particularly prominent in plague ecology.
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