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Nature 413, 467-470 (4 October 2001) | doi:10.1038/35097178
Bacterial genomics: A plague o' both your hosts
Stewart T. Cole1,2 & Carmen Buchrieser1,3
Abstract
The genome of the bacterium that causes plague is highly dynamic, and scarred by genes acquired from other organisms. Does this explain its ability to kill both mammals and insects?
The course of human evolution has been shaped by three major factors: natural disasters, wars and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, syphilis, typhus and cholera. In the past few years the darkest secrets of the bacteria responsible for each of these diseases have been unveiled by genomics, and on page 523 of this issue1 Parkhill and colleagues describe the latest subject of this approach — Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague.
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