Yersinia pestis (formerly Pasteurella pestis) is a Gram-negative rod-shaped bacterium belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae. It is a facultative anaerobe that can infect humans and other animals.
Human Y. pestis infection takes three main forms: pneumonic, septicemic, and the notorious bubonic plagues. All three forms have been responsible for high mortality rates in epidemics throughout human history, including the Black Death (a bubonic pl...
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Yersinia pestis (formerly Pasteurella pestis) is a Gram-negative rod-shaped bacterium belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae. It is a facultative anaerobe that can infect humans and other animals.
Human Y. pestis infection takes three main forms: pneumonic, septicemic, and the notorious bubonic plagues. All three forms have been responsible for high mortality rates in epidemics throughout human history, including the Black Death (a bubonic plague) that accounted for the death of at least one-third of the European population in 1347 to 1353.
On September 13, 2009, Malcolm J. Casadaban, a University of Chicago molecular genetics professor, who was doing research involving Yersinia pestis died and his death later was determined related to this bacteria, possibly contracted in his own lab..
Recently Y. pestis has gained attention as a possible biological warfare agent and the CDC has classified it as category A pathogen requiring preparation for a possible terrorist attack.
Y. pestis...
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