Yersinia pestis

Particular family of tandem repeats, such as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) found in a wide range of prokaryotic genomes. CRISPRs consist of highly conserved repeats interspaced with non-repetitive elements or "spacers" usually of viral origin. In the Yersinia pestis genome, three CRISPR elements YPa, YPb and YPc are found. The distribution of spacers and their arrays in Y. pestis strains is region and focus specific and can provide important information for genotyping and evolutionary research of bacteria.

Objective: The purpose of our study was CRISPR-based analysis of Y. pestis isolates from Georgia and neighboring countries.

Plague was first identified in Armenia in 1958 when Y. pestis was isolated and cultured from the flea species Ct. teres collected from the burrows of common voles in the northwestern part of the country. In the process of digitalizing archived data, a statistical and spatial analysis of the species composition of mammals and parasites involved in the epizootic process of plague between 1958 and 2016 was performed.

Objective:

The objective of this study was to determine the species composition of mammals and parasites involved in the epizootic process of plague in Armenia and their geographic distribution.