Attenuation of virulence in Yersinia pestis across three plague pandemics

Science

Ravneet Kaur Sidhu, Guillem Mas Fiol, Pierre Lê-Bury, Christian E. Demeure, Emelyne Bougit, Rémi Beau, Charlotte Balière, Aurelia Kwasiborski, Valérie Caro , Jennifer Klunk, Daniel J. Salkeld, Ann Carmichael, Nükhet Varlık, Debi Poinar, David J. D. Earn, Benjamin M. Bolker, Jonathan Dushoff, G. Brian Golding, Nicolas Rascovan, Olivier Dussurget, Edward C. Holmes, Javier Pizarro-Cerdá, and Hendrik N. Poinar

Summary

Plague has devastated human and rodent populations alike many times throughout history. Sidhu et al. tracked the genetics of virulence in the plague pathogen Yersinia pestis in ancient and modern samples. They observed that the bacterial virulence factor pla, a gene encoding a protease, periodically becomes depleted late in epidemics. The authors verified that pla depletion reduces virulence in mouse models of bubonic plague. Therefore, in response to high disease mortality, selection could act to attenuate virulence. This would allow the pathogen to persist in tolerant reservoir hosts when susceptible host populations fragment and pathogen transmission becomes uncertain.

More information at DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adt3880