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Caenorhabditis elegans

Plague bacteria biofilm blocks food intake

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 pestis1. In these fleas, the plague-causing bacteria are surrounded by an extracellular matrix of unknown composition2, and the blockage depends on a group of bacterial genes known as the hmsHFRS operon3. Here we show that Y. pestis creates an hmsHFRS-dependent extracellular biofilm to inhibit feeding by the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Our results suggest that feeding obstruction in fleas is a biofilm-mediated process and that biofilms may be a bacterial defence against predation by invertebrates.

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Figure 1: Yersinia pseudotuberculosis biofilms on Caenorhabditis elegans.

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Correspondence to Creg Darby.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Darby, C., Hsu, J., Ghori, N. et al. Plague bacteria biofilm blocks food intake. Nature 417, 243–244 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/417243a

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