A simple adult-mouse test for tissue invasiveness in Yersinia enterocolitica strains of low experimental virulence.
The virulence of Yersinia enterocolitica depends on the presence of a 70-kilobase plasmid, called the Vwa plasmid. This situation is particularly favourable for studies of the mechanism of pathogenicity, but these are hindered by the lack of a suitable animal test to monitor the virulence of the human-pathogenic strains isolated outside the USA which belong to serogroups O:3, O:9 and O:5,27. We observed that, after oral administration to the mouse, the Vwa-positive strains of these serogroups produce a discrete systemic infection while the Vwa-negative strains do not. We present here a simple mouse-virulence test based on this observation.
D000818:Animals; D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial / Q000096:biosynthesis; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000382:microbiology; D051379:Mice; D008815:Mice, Inbred Strains; D010957:Plasmids; D012703:Serotyping; D013154:Spleen / Q000382:microbiology; D014774:Virulence; D015009:Yersinia Infections / Q000276:immunology / Q000382:microbiology; D015008:Yersinia enterocolitica / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000472:pathogenicity*
D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial