Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, is a gram-negative pathogen that evolved from Yersinia pseudotuberculosis 1,500-20,000 years ago (Achtman et al. 1999). Plague has ravaged human populations for centuries and continues to occur in outbreaks throughout the world (Cantor 2001; Perry and Fetherston 1997). Y. pestis is usually transmitted by fleas that have fed on infected rodents prior to biting their human hosts. A number of virulence factors have been described in Y. pestis that contribute to disease including the 70-kb Yop-encoding plasmid pCD1 (Cornelis et al. 1998), plasminogen activator (Sodeinde et al. 1992), iron acquisition functions (Brubaker et al. 1965) and a surface-localized adhesin pH 6 antigen (Lindler et al. 1990).
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Felek, S., Krukonis, E.S., Thanassi, D.G., Runco, L.M. (2007). Characterization of Six Novel Chaperone/Usher Systems in Yersinia pestis. In: Perry, R.D., Fetherston, J.D. (eds) The Genus Yersinia. Advances In Experimental Medicine And Biology, vol 603. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-72124-8_8
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