ArticlePLoS pathogens2021
Acquisition of yersinia murine toxin enabled Yersinia pestis to expand the range of mammalian hosts that sustain flea-borne plague.
Article in PLoS pathogens, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Insights into infectious diseases through ancient pathogen genomics.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Emergence, global dispersal, and local adaptations ofApplied and environmental microbiology · 2026Review
- Plasma albumin contributes to early Yersinia pestis survival at the onset of flea infection.PLoS pathogens · 2026Article
- Ancient DNA insights into diverse pathogens and their hosts.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- Molecular turn inEmerging microbes & infections · 2025Article
- Interaction of Bacteria and Fleas, Focusing on the Plague Bacterium-A Review.Microorganisms · 2025Review
- Plagued by the Past, Pressed by the Present: A One Health Perspective onBiomedicines · 2025Review
- An insight into the draft genome of the Oriental rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis, together with its Wolbachia endosymbiont.BMC genomics · 2025Article
- Evidence of a role for the F1 capsule ofmBio · 2025Article
- Pathogenicity and virulence ofVirulence · 2024Review
- Transovarial transmission of Yersinia pestis in its flea vector Xenopsylla cheopis.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Unveiling the dance of evolution: Pla-mediated cleavage of Ymt modulates the virulence dynamics ofmBio · 2024Article
- Role of themBio · 2024Article
- Yersinia pestis can infect the Pawlowsky glands of human body lice and be transmitted by louse bite.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- The Natural and Clinical History of Plague: From the Ancient Pandemics to Modern Insights.Microorganisms · 2024Review
- Genomic Analysis ofPathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Yersinia pestis genomes reveal plague in Britain 4000 years ago.Nature communications · 2023Article
- A frameshift ineLife · 2023Article
- Ancient pathogens provide a window into health and well-being.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Yersinia murine toxin (Ymt) is a phospholipase D encoded on a plasmid acquired by Yersinia pestis after its recent divergence from a Yersinia pseudotuberculosis progenitor. Despite its name, Ymt is not required for virulence but acts to enhance bacterial survival in the flea digestive tract. Certain Y. pestis strains circulating in the Bronze Age lacked Ymt, suggesting that they were not transmitted by fleas. However, we show that the importance of Ymt varies with host blood source. In accordance with the original description, Ymt greatly enhanced Y. pestis survival in fleas infected with bacteremic mouse, human, or black rat blood. In contrast, Ymt was much less important when fleas were infected using brown rat blood. A Y. pestis Ymt- mutant infected fleas nearly as well as the Ymt+ parent strain after feeding on bacteremic brown rat blood, and the mutant was transmitted efficiently by flea bite during the first weeks after infection. The protective function of Ymt correlated with red blood cell digestion kinetics in the flea gut. Thus, early Y. pestis strains that lacked Ymt could have been maintained in flea-brown rat transmission cycles, and perhaps in other hosts with similar blood characteristics. Acquisition of Ymt, however, served to greatly expand the range of hosts that could support flea-borne plague.
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