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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, June 2006, p. 2084-2092, Vol. 44, No. 6
0095-1137/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.02618-05
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Efficient Tracing of Global Isolates of Yersinia pestis by Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis Using Three Insertion Sequences as Probes{dagger}

Gabriela Torrea, Viviane Chenal-Francisque, Alexandre Leclercq, and Elisabeth Carniel*

Yersinia Research Unit, National Reference Laboratory and WHO Collaborating Center for Yersinia, Institut Pasteur, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France

Received 16 December 2005/ Returned for modification 1 February 2006/ Accepted 24 March 2006

Yersinia pestis is the etiologic agent of plague, a disease that is transmitted from rodent to rodent and from rodent to humans by fleabites. Multiple copies of three insertion sequences (IS100, IS285, and IS1541) are scattered over the Y. pestis genome. The genomic instability generated by these insertion sequences (IS) creates a polymorphism of the hybridizing restriction fragments (restriction fragment length polymorphism [RFLP]) which can be used to subtype this relatively clonal species. The aim of this work was to evaluate and compare the potential of the three IS-RFLP techniques, individually or in combination, to define clusters of strains according to their focus of origin. The analysis of 61 Y. pestis isolates of worldwide origin indicated that no satisfactory strain clustering was observed with each IS-RFLP used individually. In contrast, the combination of the three IS-RFLP data (3IS-RFLP) resulted in both an efficient strain discrimination (D = 0.999) and a robust clustering of the isolates according to their biovar and geographical origin. This geographical clustering was observed even within the Orientalis group, although these strains had only a short period of time (one century) to diverge from the original clone that spread globally. Therefore, 3IS-RFLP is a technique that may be useful for addressing epidemiological problems and forensic issues. When plague reemerges after several decades of silence in a quiescent focus, it may help in determining whether the disease was reimported or reactivated. It may also be of value to identify the origin of a strain when plague cases appear in a previously plague-free region. Finally, this technique could be useful for the tracing of a Y. pestis isolate that has been used as a biological terrorism threat.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Institut Pasteur, National Reference Laboratory and WHO Collaborating Center for Yersinia, 28, rue du Dr. Roux, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France. Phone: 33 1 45 68 83 26. Fax: 33 1 40 61 30 01. E-mail: carniel2{at}pasteur.fr.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jcm.asm.org/.

Journal of Clinical Microbiology, June 2006, p. 2084-2092, Vol. 44, No. 6
0095-1137/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.02618-05
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Zhang, Z., Hai, R., Song, Z., Xia, L., Liang, Y., Cai, H., Liang, Y., Shen, X., Zhang, E., Xu, J., Yu, D., Yu, X.-J. (2009). Spatial Variation of Yersinia pestis from Yunnan Province of China. Am J Trop Med Hyg 81: 714-717 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Cornelius, C. A., Quenee, L. E., Elli, D., Ciletti, N. A., Schneewind, O. (2009). Yersinia pestis IS1541 Transposition Provides for Escape from Plague Immunity. Infect. Immun. 77: 1807-1816 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


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