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Black Death's Genome Cracked
exceed writes: "This article on Wired, and this article on Yahoo! News states that scientists have decoded the genome of the bubonic plague bacterium. This will now (hopefully soon) lead to vaccinations and treatments for the disease it causes."
Smallpox for example, would spread like crazy since we don't have a vaccine for it anymore.
A single spec of Anthrax will kill you... I don't think you can get much more deadly.
K
bubonic plague killed 34 in Los Angeles in 1924. That's not recent, but more recent then 1200's
Actually, while the destruction of the cats in the Middle ages may have contributed to (or even allowed) the huge increase in the rat population leading to the "Black Plague", I do feel a need to point out something regarding *current* problems with bubonic plague. One of the major problems with the plague is that the fleas that carry it do not live *exclusively* on rats. Domestic animals such as dogs and cats, can get them too.
According to my source at the Coconino County Health Department in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, there have been less than 60 cases state wide, since the first recorded one in 1950, of what we commonly refer to as "bubonic plague". Bubonic plague is actually descriptive of a symptom, not the disease itself which is caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis. Yersinia pestis is, as mentioned in the earlier post, carried by fleas.
The fleas of rats, mice, prairie dogs, squirrels, chipmunks and even rabbits can all carry Y. pestis. If your dog or cat is out running around free and catches or picks up a dead animal with infected fleas, your dog or cat can get those fleas. Once your pet has those fleas on him or her, they can be brought into your home and you can get the plague. However, this is apparently a very rare happening.
In 1995 there were 5 cases of Plague (Y. pestis) in Arizona. 2 of these were in Coconino county. One of these was in a woman who apparently was infected while visiting relatives in Maricopa County. The other was a man who had been out shooting prairie dogs and had handled several of the carcasses, getting fleas from them. The person at the Coconino County Health Dept. did say it was much more likely to get the aforementioned fleas from a carcass that a dog or cat brought home than directly from your dog or cat, though that was certainly possible and is believed to have happened in the past.
The point being, that while in the 14th century the "Black Death" (which is only assumed to be the same disease as Y. pestis) may or may not have been triggered by the decimation of the cat populations in Europe, we aren't living in the 1300's anymore. Now days, if you let your cat or dog run free he/she is liable to bring you a present that could cost you your life.
And don't even get me started about Hanta virus....
"Because people are no longer used to contracting fatal diseases (which bubonic plague always is if left untreated"
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Actually, it isn't.
The most virulent & deadly version of plague (pneumatic) has a mortality rate of aprox. 90% if left untreated...
...if (untreated) bubonic plague had a 100% mortality rate, european history would look very diffrent.
Bubonic plague is nasty, nasty stuff. . .I've read a lot about the various fun ways it can kill you through history books. For those who have no idea of what it did to Europe, read a good summary of the Black Death here.
Also, before people go off on biological weapons, etc, consider that there have been several recent breakouts of this disease, particularly in the southwest US(where I'm from). Don't know what I'm talking about? Check out this as an example. I remember reading in the paper in AZ about outbreaks occasionally and shuddering. A cure would be a godsend--even though there are only about 10-15 cases in the US a year, its a painful way to go.
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Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
- Sanger Center project page with additional info for the data hungry.
- Press release on which the news articles are based.
- Nature Science Update's take on the news
This can be seen as blatant karma-whoring, but I would really appreciate if submitters of science stories dug out links like these before posting. Gives much better credibility, IMHO.Reality or nothing.
This article in the Sydney Morning Herald suggests rats and fleas may not be to blame for the spread of the plague.
This is an update of above. Here are some links:
Black Plague, AIDS immunity linked
Scientists Discover Similarity in HIV and Black Death
42 + 1 = 42
Interesting observations, but how sure are we that the "Black Death" is caused by Y. pestis, and not by a viral agent (as pointed out in a previous post)? Without that presumption, the whole argument of Y. pestis, and HIV using the same cells to attack the host (human macrophages) is invalid.
/. user already, so there's no karma in this one, unless the moderator is a molecular biologist or something ;-)
But let's stay positive and hope this little far-fetched theory turns out to be true. Tell me, how are you going to cure AIDS with it? Targeted gene replacement of CCR5 in macrophages? That's SciFi, and won't happen in the next 10 yrs IM-not-so-HO. Also, it's not very cost-effective: it only works as a defence when you get infected by someone in the earlier stages of HIV infection, so the use is to limited. Plus, I don't see how the genome of Y.pestis would help to understand the HIV-macrophage virus-host interaction better, but maybe I'm prejudiced towards the use of genomics. I wouldn't bet my money on this being the cure for aids.
Okay let's stop here. I've lost the average
Regards,
Meneer de Koekepeer
Umm. AFAIK bacteria have DNA.
However, they are NOT multicellular.
The main differences between virii and bacteria are that bacteria have fully functional cellular structures, whereas viruses just have "trojan" code which they insert into the host cell.
First, some corrections. Bacteria are unicellular. Not "many cells" as you state. Even if they would consist of many cells, the genome would be the same for every cell , so there's no difference in complexity in that respect. And btw, I would love to see a virus that can go through glass. I don't know who told you that, but I wouldn't trust that person anymore when it comes to biology-related subjects ;-)
Once you have isolated the DNA (you know the stuff that carries the genome), the decoding principle is the same. Since a virus is less complex than a bacterium, it's probably easier to isolate DNA from virii. Furthermore a virus generally contains a much shorter genome than a bacterium.
Although I don't have any hands-on experience with virii, I can hardly imagine that sequencing the genome of a virus is more difficult than sequencing the genome of a bacterium.
Regards,
Meneer de Koekepeer
"The most virulent & deadly version of plague (pneumatic)..."
Actually, there were three types:
Bubonic (lymph nodes)
Pneumonic (lungs)
Septicemic (blood)
The deadliest was Septicemic, killing 100% of the people that contracted it. However, there had to be a very specific set of circumstances (temerature, etc.) for a person to get this type.
Just FYI, Pneumonic killed about 90% of the people that got it and Bubonic killed about 75%.
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
1 Small molecule metabolism
- 1.A Degradation
[18]
- 1.A.1 Carbon compounds
[66]
- 1.A.2 Amino acids
[23]
- 1.B Energy metabolism
- 1.B.1 Glycolysis
[12]
- 1.B.10 Glyoxylate bypass
[3]
- 1.B.2 Pyruvate dehydrogenase
[4]
- 1.B.3 Tricarboxylic acid cycle
[15]
- 1.B.5 Pentose phosphate pathway
[3]
- 1.B.5.a Oxidative branch
- 1.B.5.b Non-oxidative branch
[4]
- 1.B.6 Entner-Doudoroff pathway
[2]
If you're a biologist or just curious you should definitely check this out. I wish I had this kind of info when I did a report on the Black Plague in High School!Tired of free ipod spam sigs? Opt ou