Peculiarities of Pigmentation Expression and Structural Differences of hms Operon Genes in <i>Y. pestis</i> and <i>Y. pseudotuberculosis</i> Strains of Diverse Origin

Abstract

Pigmentation was examined in 214 plague microbe strains and 68 pseudotuberculosis agent strains. Plague microbe strains of different subspecies and pseudotuberculosis microbe strains demonstrated different ability of hemin and acidic dyes sorption. Genes of hms operon in typical Y. pestis strains of five subspecies and in talassica group strains, as well as in Y. pseudotuberculosis O1 serotype strains, were sequenced and analyzed using PCR. Single nucleotide substitutions were detected in all genes of the operon in plague microbe strains as compared with the operon of pseudotuberculosis agent strains. Determined were single nucleotide substitutions promising for intraspecific differentiation of plague microbe strains.

Keywords

• plague microbe
• pseudotuberculosis microbe
• interspecific and intraspecific differences
• hms-phenotype
• <i>hms</i>-operon