Yersinia pestis evolution on a small timescale: comparison of whole genome sequences from North America

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 2; no. 8; p. e770
• Main Authors: Auerbach, Raymond K, Tuanyok, Apichai, Probert, William S, Kenefic, Leo, Vogler, Amy J, Bruce, David C, Munk, Christine, Brettin, Thomas S, Eppinger, Mark, Ravel, Jacques, Wagner, David M, Keim, Paul
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 22.08.2007; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Analysis; Bacillus anthracis; Biodiversity; Bioinformatics; Biological Evolution; Biological weapons; Chromosome Inversion; Chromosomes; Computational Biology/Comparative Sequence Analysis; Computational Biology/Genomics; Disease; Epidemics; Etiology; Evolution; Evolutionary genetics; Fixation; Gene sequencing; Genetic aspects; Genetic diversity; Genetic research; Genetic Variation; Genetics and Genomics/Comparative Genomics; Genetics and Genomics/Genome Projects; Genetics and Genomics/Microbial Evolution and Genomics; Genome, Bacterial; Genomes; Genomics; Humans; Infectious Diseases; Inversions; Laboratories; Molecular Sequence Data; North America; Nucleotide sequence; Pandemics; Pathogens; Phylogenetics; Plague; Plague - epidemiology; Plague - genetics; Plague - microbiology; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; Proteobacteria; Public health; Single nucleotide polymorphisms; Single-nucleotide polymorphism; Yersinia pestis; Yersinia pestis - genetics; North America; California; New Mexico; United States > US; Maryland; Arizona
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0000770

Yersinia pestis, the etiologic agent of plague, was responsible for several devastating epidemics throughout history and is currently of global importance to current public heath and biodefense efforts. Y. pestis is widespread in the Western United States. Because Y. pestis was first introduced to this region just over 100 years ago, there has been little time for genetic diversity to accumulate. Recent studies based upon single nucleotide polymorphisms have begun to quantify the genetic diversity of Y. pestis in North America. To examine the evolution of Y. pestis in North America, a gapped genome sequence of CA88-4125 was generated. Sequence comparison with another North American Y. pestis strain, CO92, identified seven regions of difference (six inversions, one rearrangement), differing IS element copy numbers, and several SNPs. The relatively large number of inverted/rearranged segments suggests that North American Y. pestis strains may be undergoing inversion fixation at high rates over a short time span, contributing to higher-than-expected diversity in this region. These findings will hopefully encourage the scientific community to sequence additional Y. pestis strains from North America and abroad, leading to a greater understanding of the evolutionary history of this pathogen.