A Review of “Retracing the Evolutionary Path that Led to Flea-borne Transmission of Yersinia pestis.”

Student’s name

Professor’s name

Course:

Date:

A Review of “Retracing the Evolutionary Path that Led to Flea-borne Transmission of Yersinia pestis.”

The article is a report on an experiment that describes the precise mechanistic and genetic basis of the Y pestis evolutionary adaptation to the transmission of fleas. To exemplify this scientists’, conduct a gene comparison that are included the c-di-GMP Biofilm formulation and metabolism in Y pestis and Y. pseudotuberculosis. Genes that are denoted in red represent the pseudogenes in Y. pestis KIM, and the DGC3 gene which is observed to be functional in Y. pestisstrains. The lines in dash represent the indirect repression and mechanisms that are undefined in nature. Ultimately, the scientists replace the Y. pestis rcsA pseudogene with Y. pseudotuberculosis homolog that is fully functional and this results in a significant reduction of the ability to obstruct fleas. This indicates that transmissibility is enhanced by the loss of genes. gene loss enhances transmissibility.

Comprehension on the certain changes in genes is needed for the characterization of phenotypic effects on transmissibility and flea infection, transition to the lifestyle of arthropod-borne and the recapitulation of the evolutionary pathways that lead to the transmission of fleas is essential. Dependence on fleas for transmission purposes would have led to the imposition of discerning pressure for many invasive clones that are improved in the disseminating from sites of flea bites and high threshold bacterial levels that are needed in flea infection.

The study is important as it focuses on the mechanisms of vector-borne transmissibility and the flea interactions. The Y. pestis strains and also the genes that are nearest to Y. Pseudotuberculosis progenitor at the PDE3-pe mutation, PDE2 pseudogene and the minimum contain ymt. The scientist was able to find out that only four changes occur in the bacterial progenitor, representing three gen losses and a single gene gain, enhanced transmission by the flea vectors. The next experiment that scientists should take can involve how gene loss can be as important as gene acquisition to the evolutionary process.