Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Jun 13;13(6):e0198067.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0198067. eCollection 2018.

Reemergence of human plague in Yunnan, China in 2016

Liyuan Shi  1   2 , Guirong Yang  1   2 , Zhikai Zhang  3   4   5 , Lianxu Xia  3   4   5 , Ying Liang  3   4   5 , Hongli Tan  1   2 , Jinrong He  3   4   5 , Jianguo Xu  3   4   5 , Zhizhong Song  1   2 , Wei Li  3   4   5 , Peng Wang  1   2
Affiliations

Reemergence of human plague in Yunnan, China in 2016

Liyuan Shi et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The third plague pandemic originated from Yunnan Province, China in the middle of the 19th century. The last human plague epidemic in Yunnan occurred from 1986-2005. On June 6, 2016, a case of human plague was reported in the Xishuangbanna Prefecture, Yunnan. The patient suffered from primary septicemic plague after exposure to a dead house rat (Rattus flavipectus), which has been identified as the main plague reservoir in the local epizootic area. Moreover, a retrospective investigation identified another bubonic plague case in this area. Based on these data, human plague reemerged after a silent period of ten years. In this study, three molecular typing methods, including a clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) analysis, different region analysis (DFR), and multiple-locus variable number of tandem repeats analysis (MLVA), were used to illustrate the molecular characteristics of Yersinia pestis (Y. pestis) strains isolated in Yunnan. The DFR profiles of the strains isolated in Yunnan in 2016 were the same as the strains that had previously been isolated in this Rattus flavipectus plague focus. The c3 spacer present in the previously isolated strains was absent in the spacer arrays of the Ypc CRISPR loci of the strains isolated in 2016. The MLVA analysis using MLVA (14+12) showed that the strains isolated from the human plague case and host animal plague infection in 2016 in Yunnan displayed different molecular patterns than the strains that had previously been isolated from Yunnan and adjacent provinces.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Dendrogram of the Y. pestis strains isolated in Yunnan obtained using the MLVA14 scheme.
The number on the dendrogram line indicates the MLVA14 scheme subclade.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Minimum spanning tree (MST) of the isolates in the MLVA14-06 subclade obtained using the MLVA(14+12) scheme.
Thick solid lines connect types that differed in a single VNTR locus, thin solid lines connect types that differed in 2 VNTR loci, and other lines connect types that differed in more than 2 VNTR loci. Circles with different colors indicate prefectures in Yunnan or other provinces or strains isolated in Burma. The year in which the isolate was obtained is indicated by the lineages. The numbers on the branches indicate the different numbers of VNTR loci. If two neighboring types did not differ in more than 2 VNTR loci, they would be surrounded by a halo of the same color.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Morelli G, Song Y, Mazzoni CJ, Eppinger M, Roumagnac P, Wagner DM, et al. Yersinia pestis genome sequencing identifies patterns of global phylogenetic diversity. Nat Genet. 2010;42: 1140–1143. doi: 10.1038/ng.705 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Platonov ME, Evseeva VV, Dentovskaya SV, Anisimov AP. Molecular typing of Yersinia pestis. Mol Genet Microbiol Virol. 2013;28: 41–51. doi: 10.3103/S0891416813020067 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cui Y, Li Y, Gorgé O, Platonov ME, Yan Y, Guo Z, et al. Insight into microevolution of Yersinia pestis by clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. PLoS One. 2008;3: e2652 doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002652 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. The epidemic history of plague in China. Chinese Academy of Medical Science; 1980 [In Chinese].
    1. Li J, Dong X, Zhao W, Liang Y. Analysis on epidemiologic characteristics of human plague case from Rattus flavipectus plague natural foci in Yunnan Province. Chin J Endemiology. 2008;27: 210–212 [in Chinese].

Publication types