Brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) have been identified as potential carriers of Yersinia enterocolitica and Y. pseudotuberculosis, the etiological agents of yersiniosis, the third most reported bacterial zoonosis in Europe. Enteropathogenic Yersinia spp. are most often isolated from rats during yersiniosis cases in animals and humans, and from rats inhabiting farms and slaughterhouses. Information...

Bayesian analysis was used to estimate the pig's and herd's true prevalence of enteropathogenic Yersinia in serum samples collected from Finnish pig farms. The sensitivity and specificity of the diagnostic test were also estimated for the commercially available ELISA which is used for antibody detection against enteropathogenic Yersinia. The Bayesian analysis was performed in two steps; the fir...

Lymphocyte transformation responses were studied in 21 patients with acute yersinia infection followed-up after the acute infection for up to one year. Eight patients had reactive arthritis caused by yersinia. The responses to the causative serotype of yersinia were significantly lower (p less than 0.05) in patients with arthritis than in those without arthritis. Stimulation with Escherichia co...

Yersinia specific immune complexes were demonstrated in the synovial fluid of three patients out of 12 with yersinia triggered reactive arthritis. They were not detectable in the synovial fluid of any of the 16 control patients, including nine with reactive arthritis triggered by factors other than yersiniae. Platelet reactive IgG was detectable in the synovial fluid of eight out of the 12 pati...

Three different Yersinia enterocolitica serotype O8 strains harboring mutations in virulence-associated genes coding for Yersinia adhesin A (YadA), Mn-cofactored superoxide dismutase (SodA), and high-molecular-weight protein 1 were analyzed for their ability to colonize and persist in tissues after orogastric immunization of C57BL/6 mice. We demonstrated that all three Yersinia mutant strains w...

........................................................................................... 5 PAPERS IN THIS THESIS.................................................................... 6 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 7 Yersinia spp. and their diseases..............................................................................7 P...

The bacterium Xenorhabdus nematophila is an insect pathogen and an obligate symbiont of the nematode Steinernema carpocapsae. X. nematophila makes a biofilm that adheres to the head of the model nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a capability X. nematophila shares with the biofilms made by Yersinia pestis and Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. As in Yersinia spp., the X. nematophila biofilm requires a ...

The Vitek GNI card was used to identify 212 isolates of 10 Yersinia species. Identification was correct for 96.3% of the isolates (156 of 162) to the genus level and for 57.4% of the isolates (93 of 162) to the species level for Yersinia spp. listed in the Vitek database. We recommend additional identification methods for isolates assigned to the genus Yersinia by the Vitek system.

Yersinia pestis, the etiologic agent of plague, has only recently evolved from Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. hfq deletion caused severe growth restriction at 37 degrees C in Y. pestis but not in Y. pseudotuberculosis. Strains from all epidemic plague biovars were similarly affected, implicating Hfq, and likely small RNAs (sRNAs), in the unique biology of the plague bacillus.