Yersinia Pestis Disease

Yersinia pestis is a gram negative facultative anaerobe which means it can reproduce with or without the presence of oxygen. It is a rod shaped non-motile unicellular prokaryote. Three types of bacteria from the genus name are associated with Yersinia pestis. They are share a common characteristic which is that they are pathogenic towards humans. The three known bacterium are Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, Yersinia enterocolitica and, Yersinia pestis. Yersinia pestis is and will forever be known as the bacteria that caused the bubonic/black plague. Y. pestis is a zoonotic disease known to cause fatal infections in rodents and humans. Our understanding of this deadly disease is its mode of transmission and molecular mechanism. Its primary mode
pestis 195/P wild type strain. It had been taken from an infected Indian patient. Alongside the strain of virulent Y. pestis they used a pYV variant of the strain. Both were cultured in two types of broth to better accommodate for not using an actual flea to infect the host. Once the bacteria had been cultured and counted it was time to infect a live host. For this experiment much like others the live hosts were rats. Rattus norvegicus that aged between six to 8 weeks old were the lucky ones chosen for this experiment. The mode of transmission for infection was through an intradermal injection on the inferior portion of the lumbar. They were carefully monitored for 2 and half days after the infection. The first sample of Rattus norvegicus was taken at 36 hours and the second sample was taken 60 hours after the initial infection. The specimens were relieved of this world and there organs were harvested and prepared for microarray analysis. To determine the number of bacterial cultures within the lymph nodes they used two samples. One was a control lymph node that was not introduced to the Y. pestis bacteria and a sample of the lymph node that was exposed for 36 hour and one that was exposed for 60 hours. In their experiment they also wanted to test and distinguish the rats based on the level of infection that had occurred in there body. The spleen is finely grounded up and placed into a blood
In the medical field one must always want to know the rate of spread of a pathogen and any viable factors that may exclude the host from developing any serious illness. Through this experiment they were able to determine the rate in which a virulent Yersinia pestis can affect the body and cause extreme hard. I like to believe this is a major breakthrough because the bubonic plague is a very serious and deadly disease. Extending our knowledge of it will only benefit us. If I were to ask a question pertaining to Y. pestis it would be if subjecting a subject to a weaker strain of the virus would create an immune defense against it and if it would be able to get passed down through genetics. I would hypothesis that given the advances in medicine and technology it would be possible. My experiment would be conducted in a small secluded part of the world using chimps. It would consist having a control group to verify and compare results with. I would have 2 test groups consisting of male and female chimps. One group would be regularly monitored in the lab and taken care of. While the other would be left to live in a natural habitat .The only contact we would have is collecting samples and administering the strain of Y. pestis. If there are chimps showing immunity I would breed them and verify if the immunity were passed down from mother to fetus. If