Yersinia pseudotuberculosis
Enteric pathogen and the direct ancestral population of Y. pestis. Its proximity is the main source of species misassignment in public archives.
Yersinia pseudotuberculosis is an enteric pathogen transmitted by the faecal-oral route, causing mesenteric adenitis and a self-limiting gastroenteritis, and in the Far East a scarlet-like fever.
Its importance here is evolutionary: it is the direct ancestral population of Y. pestis. The two are so close that the genomic distance between them is smaller than the distance within many single bacterial species, which is why Y. pestis is sometimes described as a clone of Y. pseudotuberculosis rather than as a separate species.
The practical consequence for anyone assembling a Yersinia dataset is that misassignment between the two in public archives is a genuine hazard, and that species identity should be checked rather than taken from the submitted metadata.
Plasmid content
Copy number is a per-genome measurement, never a species constant.
| Replicon | present | partial | absent | not measured |
|---|---|---|---|---|
chromosome |
2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
pMT1 |
0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
pCD1 |
2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
pPCP1 |
0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
Defining markers
cgMLST is the reference typing method for the genus (BIGSdb-Pasteur). SNP branch nomenclature applies to Y. pestis alone, which is a monomorphic clone.
| Type | Code | Source |
|---|---|---|
| other | Motile at 28 degrees C, non-motile at 37 degrees C | Classical phenotypic criterion, distinguishes it from Y. pestis which is non-motile at all temperatures |
| plasmid | pYV (70 kb virulence plasmid, homologue of pCD1) | Portnoy & Falkow 1981, J Bacteriol |
Typing equivalences
Three cgMLST schemes coexist for the genus and have never been compared in the literature. They are shown side by side; this atlas does not arbitrate between them.
| System | Code | Match |
|---|---|---|
| ncbi | txid633 | exact |
Genomes (2)
| Accession | Strain | Country | Collection year | Assembly level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
GCF_000834295.1 |
IP32953 | — | — | Complete Genome |
GCF_003798425.1 |
FDAARGOS_581 | France | — | Complete Genome |