Plague and Yersinia pestis

INSERM U1019 – CNRS UMR9017 – Lille University – CHU Lille – Institut Pasteur de Lille

Presentation

Highlights

• For many years, our team has been working to identify new genes that allow Y. pestis to produce the disease in mammals, with the aim of developing new vaccines and therapeutic strategies against plague. In addition to better understanding the mechanisms by which Y. pestis colonizes a mammal, we have identified the limitations of the acellular plague vaccines under development and proposed a strategy to improve them. With our collaborators at Duke University (USA), we have also developed a new class of antibiotics to cure the disease. Furthermore, we have shown that these new antibiotics are active against a broad spectrum of Gram-negative bacteria that are highly resistant to multiple antibiotics and constitute a major public health problem in our countries.

• For nearly 10 years, part of our team has also been working to elucidate the mechanisms used by Y. pestis to produce a transmissible infection in fleas. The fruit of our work has led to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of the disease in the insect and the identification of new Y. pestis genes required for the infection thanks to our development of an innovative technology (allowing the screening of many Y. pestis mutants at relatively high throughput in the insect). Based on our data, we were able to discover new molecular mechanisms used by the bacillus to be transmitted by fleas. This work opens the door for new strategies to control the spread of the plague.

• For nearly 10 years, part of our team has also been working to elucidate the mechanisms used by Y. pestis to produce a transmissible infection in fleas. Our work has led to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of the disease in the insect and to the identification of new Y. pestis genes required for infection thanks to the development of an innovative technology (allowing the screening of numerous bacterial mutants at a relatively high throughput in the insect). Based on our data, we were able to discover new molecular mechanisms used by the bacillus to be transmitted by fleas. This work paves the way for new strategies to control the spread of the plague.

Learn more : www.ciil.fr

Members

Michael MARCEAU
MCU, Univ Lille
ORCID number : 0000-0002-4403-8081

Servane LE GUILLOUZER
Post-doc, IPL

Publications

Lemaître N, Liang X, Najeeb J, Lee CJ, Titecat M, Leteurtre E, Simonet M, Toone EJ, Zhou P, Sebbane F.
Curative Treatment of Severe Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections by a New Class of Antibiotics Targeting LpxC.
MBio, 2017, 25;8(4): e00674-17.

Daniel C, Dewitte A, Poiret S, Marceau M, Simonet M, Marceau L, Descombes G, Boutillier D, Bennaceur N, Bontemps-Gallo S, Lemaître N, Sebbane F.
Polymorphism in the Yersinia LcrV Antigen Enables Immune Escape From the Protection Conferred by an LcrV-Secreting Lactococcus Lactis in a Pseudotuberculosis Mouse Model.
Frontiers in Immunology, 2019, 2;10: 1830.

Gandon S, Heitzmann L, Sebbane F.
To block or not to block: The adaptive manipulation of plague transmission.
Evolution Letters, 2019, 27;3(2):152-161.

Bontemps-Gallo S, Fernandez M, Dewitte A, Raphaël E, Gherardini FC, Elizabeth P, Koch L, Biot F, Reboul A, Sebbane F.
Nutrient depletion may trigger the Yersinia pestis OmpR-EnvZ regulatory system to promote flea-borne plague transmission.
Molecular Microbiology, 2019, 112(5):1471-1482.

Dewitte A, Bouvenot T, Pierre F, Ricard I, Pradel E, Barois N, Hujeux A, Bontemps-Gallo S, Sebbane F.
A refined model of how Yersinia pestis produces a transmissible infection in its flea vector.
PLoS Pathogens, 2020, 16(4):e1008440.

Keywords

Pestis ; Yersinia pestis ; Flea ; Mechanisms of infection ; Vaccine ; Antibiotherapy

Contact équipe

Florent Sebbane
Group leader

florent.sebbane@ibl.cnrs.fr
03 20 87 11 93