Genotyping, Orientalis-like Yersinia pestis, and plague pandemics.
Three pandemics have been attributed to plague in the last 1,500 years. Yersinia pestis caused the third, and its DNA was found in human remains from the second. The Antiqua biovar of Y. pestis may have caused the first pandemic; the other two biovars, Medievalis and Orientalis, may have caused the second and third pandemics, respectively. To test this hypothesis, we designed an original genotyping system based on intergenic spacer sequencing called multiple spacer typing (MST). We found that MST differentiated every biovar in a collection of 36 Y. pestis isolates representative of the three biovars. When MST was applied to dental pulp collected from remains of eight persons who likely died in the first and second pandemics, this system identified original sequences that matched those of Y. pestis Orientalis. These data indicate that Y. pestis caused cases of Justinian plague. The two historical plague pandemics were likely caused by Orientalis-like strains.
Drancourt
Michel
M
Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France.
Roux
Véronique
V
Dang
La Vu
LV
Tran-Hung
Lam
L
Castex
Dominique
D
Chenal-Francisque
Viviane
V
Ogata
Hiroyuki
H
Fournier
Pierre-Edouard
PE
Crubézy
Eric
E
Raoult
Didier
D
D001483:Base Sequence; D021901:DNA, Intergenic / Q000235:genetics; D003782:Dental Pulp / Q000382:microbiology; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000266:history*; D005814:Genes, Viral; D005838:Genotype; D014943:Global Health; D049690:History, Ancient; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D009154:Mutation; D010802:Phylogeny; D010930:Plague / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000266:history / Q000382:microbiology*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000379:methods; D015010:Yersinia pestis / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*
D021901:DNA, Intergenic