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Science 19 July 1996:
Vol. 273. no. 5273, pp. 287 - 0
DOI:

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Bubonic plague is known to be transmitted by the bite of starved fleas whose foreguts are blocked by a mass of the bacillus Yersinia pestis. The molecular and genetic mechanisms in Y. pestis that lead to this blockage have been uncertain. Hinnebusch et al. (p. 367) show, using Y. pestis mutants, that blockage of the fleas' foregut by the bacillus mass is dependent on the presence of the hemin storage (hms) locus gene. The mutants in which this gene is knocked out are evidently less cohesive and are efficiently flushed back into the midgut of the flea and not transmitted.




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)