YfbA, a Yersinia pestis Regulator Required for Colonization and Biofilm Formation in the Gut of Cat Fleas
2014
Tam, Christina | Demke, Owen | Hermanas, Timothy | Mitchell, Anthony | Hendrickx, Antoni P. A. | Schneewind, Olaf
For transmission to new hosts, Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, replicates as biofilm in the foregut of fleas that feed on plague-infected animals or humans. Y. pestis biofilm formation has been studied in the rat flea; however, little is known about the cat flea, a species that may bridge zoonotic and anthroponotic plague cycles. Here, we show that Y. pestis infects and replicates as a biofilm in the foregut of cat fleas in a manner requiring hmsFR, two determinants for extracellular biofilm matrix. Examining a library of transposon insertion mutants, we identified the LysR-type transcriptional regulator YfbA, which is essential for Y. pestis colonization and biofilm formation in cat fleas.
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