Black Death's Genome Cracked 252
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."
Re:Technology is a Double Edged Sword... (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:Wasteful (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I feel so much safer (Score:5, Informative)
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....
Re:To clarify a couple points (Score:5, Informative)
----------------
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.
Excellent! (Score:4, Informative)
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 [cnn.com] 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.
Karma-whoring: Some info links (Score:5, Informative)
Rats and fleas not to blame (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not far from AIDS (Score:2, Informative)
Black Plague, AIDS immunity linked [nwsource.com]
Scientists Discover Similarity in HIV and Black Death [nationalviatical.org]
Re:Not far from AIDS (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:Another Great Topic! (Score:1, Informative)
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.
Re:This will go a long way towards vaccinations... (Score:2, Informative)
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
Further Correction... (Score:4, Informative)
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%.
Gene functions (Score:2, Informative)
1 Small molecule metabolism