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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2007;297:941.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Blocking a key molecule of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, may help slow the progression of the pneumonic form of the disease and allow antibiotics time to work, according to new research conducted at Washington University School of Medicine, in St Louis, Mo (Lathem WW et al. Science. 2007;315:509-513). Y pestis is best known for causing the Black Death in the Middle Ages, when it killed a third or more of the European population.

Until now, the mechanisms by which Y pestis overwhelms the lungs have remained unclear. But this latest research suggests that a virulence factor called plasminogen activator (Pla) allows the bacterium to replicate rapidly in the airways and cause pneumonia. Mice injected with Y pestis died within 3.5 days, but of those injected with a strain that lacked Pla, only half had developed terminal plague after 7 days.

The investigators . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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