AJTMH Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
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Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., 81(4), 2009, pp. 714-717
doi:10.4269/ajtmh.2009.09-0174;
Copyright © 2009 by The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

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Spatial Variation of Yersinia pestis from Yunnan Province of China

Zhikai Zhang{dagger}, Rong Hai{dagger}, Zhizhong Song, Lianxu Xia, Yun Liang, Hong Cai, Ying Liang, Xiaona Shen, Enmin Zhang, Jianguo Xu{ddagger}, Dongzheng Yu{ddagger}, AND Xue-Jie Yu*,{ddagger}
State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China; Department of Pathology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas; Yunnan Institute for Endemic Disease Control and Prevention, Dali, China

Yunnan Province of China is considered the site of origin for modern plague. We analyzed the genotypes of eight Yersinia pestis strains isolated from three counties in Yunnan Province by pulse field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). PFGE showed that strains isolated from the same site were identical regardless of hosts or year of isolation. However, Y. pestis strains isolated from geographically distinct loci were genetically divergent. Whole genome sequences of two strains from two foci in Yunnan showed that the genetic variation of Y. pestis strains was caused by genome rearrangement. We concluded that Y. pestis strains in each epidemic focus in Yunnan were a clonal population and selected by host environments. The genomic variability of the Y. pestis strains from different foci were caused by genome rearrangement, which may provide a positive selective advantage for Y. pestis to adapt to its host environments.

Received April 3, 2009. Accepted for publication July 14, 2009.

Acknowledgments: The authors thank Yan Liu for discussion of the manuscript and assistance in preparation of figures and Dr. Jere McBride (University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston) for reviewing the manuscript.

Financial support: This study was supported by a grant from the Special Fund for Health Sector, the People’s Republic of China (Award 200802016) and a grant from the ministry of science and technology of the People’s Republic of China (Award 2004BA718B07).

* Address correspondence to Xue-Jie Yu, Department of Pathology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555-0609. E-mail: xuyu{at}utmb.edu

{dagger} These authors contributed equally.

{ddagger} These authors contributed equally.

Authors’ addresses: Zhikai Zhang, Rong Hai, Lianxu Xia, Hong Cai, Ying Liang, Xiaona Shen, Enmin Zhang, Jianguo Xu, and Dongzheng Yu, State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, PO Box 5, Changping, Beijing 102206, People’s Republic of China. Zhizhong Song and Yun Liang, Yunnan Institute for Endemic Disease Control and Prevention, 5 Wenhualu, Dali 671000, Yunnan Province, Peoples’s Republic of China. Zhikai Zhang and Xue-jie Yu, Department of Pathology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX, 77555-0609.






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