Abstract:A handful of traditional and molecular assays were applied to decipher the
phenotypic and genomic characteristics of a suspicious Yersinia pestis strain 55023. Strain
55023 showed typical colony morphism and microscopic features of Y. pestis. It can be lysed
by the diagnostic phage of Y. pestis at 22℃, 28℃ and 37℃, which resembles typical Y.
pestis isolates. Strain 55023 was positive for utilizing arabinose, glucosylglucose,
glycerine and denitrification, while negative for rhamnose and melibiose, which was also
identical to reference Y. pestis strains. Known virulence factors for Y. pestis (F1 antigen,
VW antigen, pgm and Pst 1) were all absent from strain 55023, and all mice survived even
challenged by 17.5 billion CFU of 55023. Both microarray and PCR verified the absence of
three known plasmids of Yersinia pestis (pPCP, pMT1 and pCD), and microarray analysis also
revealed the missing of 12% Y. pestis genes in strain 55023. Two signature genes failed to
get amplified in this stain. One of representative genes of pgm locus, YPO1954, is present,
while the other one YPO1908 absent in 55023, which suggests a partial pgm locus in it.
Different regions (DFR) profiling disclosed the absence of 14 out of 23 DFRs from this
strain, which tended to reject it as Y. pestis strain. Sixgene multilocus sequencing
typing (MLST) analysis identified 16 different nucleotides out of 2,509 bp between 55023 and
Yersinia pestis, while only 2 variations between 55023 and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis
serovars III. Although stain 55023 shared quite a few phenotypic characteristics with Y.
pestis, the detailed molecular data identified it as Yersinia pseudotuberculosis (probably
serovars III). It's suggested that phenotypic analysis, like phage lysis, is not capable of
providing solid data for the identification of Y. pestis.
何建, 李艳君, 祁芝珍, 崔玉军, 任玲玲, 代瑞霞, 王效义, 崔百忠, 张青雯, 杨瑞馥, 宋亚军. 对1株疑似鼠疫耶尔森氏菌的系统鉴定[J]. 中国人兽共患病学报, 2011, 27(4): 355-358.
HE Jian, LI Yan-Jun, QI Zhi-Zhen, CUI Yu-Jun, REN Ling-Ling, DAI Rui-Xia, WANG Xiao-Yi, CUI Bai-Zhong, ZHANG Qing-Wen, YANG Rui-Fu, SONG Ya-Jun.
Systematic identification of a suspicious Yersinia pestis isolate. Chinese Journal of Zoonoses, 2011, 27(4): 355-358.
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