BIOL 118 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Alexandre Yersin, Microorganism, Macrophage

• School: University of San Diego
• Department: Biology Courses
• Course: BIOL 118
• Professor: Terry Bird

Document Summary

Trained scientist find cause of bubonic plague. 3rd pandemic broke out in mangeria china during this time. Rival trying to find it too; shibasabury kitasato. Had to bribe people to get corpses to isolate pathogen and show its the cause. Hypothesized that rats were carrrying the pathogen. Bc very often there would be dramatic die offs of rates before plagues had hit. Showed bacterium resided in fleas carried by rats. Some have ability to synthesize this layer. Hard for phagocytic cells to get a hold of it. Also sometimes sticky to allow cells to make initial contact to bind to tissue. Associated with virulence (ability to cause disease) Some infected animals are resistant to disease but shelter microbe. Foci* where y pestis is maintained within rodent colonies. Now almost covers half of the us. Thought to have evolved from yersinia pseudotuberculosis. Eventually evolved to live in the rodent. Jumped fr rodents to rats (closest domesticated animals)