Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 13, 2026

Quantifying Yersinia pseudotuberculosis Type III Secretion System Activity Following Iron Starvation and Anaerobic Growth
Published on: May 31, 2024
Genome and Evolution of Yersinia pestis
1Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, No. Dongdajie, Fengtai, Beijing, 100071, China. cuiyujun.new@gmail.com.
Abstract:
This chapter summarizes researches on genome and evolution features of Yersinia pestis, the young pathogen that evolved from Y. pseudotuberculosis at least 5000 years ago. Y. pestis is a highly clonal bacterial species with closed pan-genome. Comparative genomic analysis revealed that genome of Y. pestis experienced highly frequent rearrangement and genome decay events during the evolution. The genealogy of Y. pestis includes five major branches, and four of them seemed raised from a "big bang" node that is associated with the Black Death. Although whole genome-wide variation of Y. pestis reflected a neutral evolutionary process, the branch length in the genealogical tree revealed over dispersion, which was supposedly caused by varied historical molecular clock that is associated with demographical effect by alternate cycles of enzootic disease and epizootic disease in sylvatic plague foci. In recent years, palaeomicrobiology researches on victims of the Black Death, and Justinian's plague verified that two historical pandemics were indeed caused by Y. pestis, but the etiological lineages might be extinct today.
Related Concept Videos
Genomic DNA in Prokaryotes
Genomic Diversity in Bacteria
Although bacterial genomes are much...
Genome Size and the Evolution of New Genes
Bacterial Transformation
Griffith made an unexpected discovery when he killed the pathogenic strain and mixed its remains with the live, non-pathogenic strain. Not only did the mixture kill host mice, but it also contained living pathogenic bacteria that...
Types of Genetic Transfer Between Organisms
DNA Bacteriophages
Viral Replication: Lysogenic Cycle

