CGC Bibliography Paper 5238

Caenorhabditis elegans - Plague bacteria biofilm blocks food intake.

Darby C, Hsu JW, Ghori N, Falkow S

Medline:
Citation:
Nature 417: 243-244 2002
Type:
ARTICLE
Genes:
phm-2
Abstract:
Bubonic plague is transmitted to mammals, including humans, by the bites of fleas whose digestive tracts are blocked by a mass of the bacterium Yersinia pestis. In these fleas, the plague-causing bacteria are surrounded by an extracellular matrix of unknown composition, and the blockage depends on a group of bacterial genes known as the hmsHFRS operon. Here we show that Y. pestis creates an hmsHFRS-dependent extracellular biofilm to inhibit feeding by the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.