Yersinia pestisIS1541Transposition Provides for Escape from Plague Immunity

Abstract

Yersinia pestisis perhaps the most feared infectious agent due to its ability to cause epidemic outbreaks of plague disease in animals and humans with high mortality. Plague infections elicit strong humoral immune responses against the capsular antigen (fraction 1 [F1]) ofY. pestis, and F1-specific antibodies provide protective immunity. Here we asked whetherY. pestisgenerates mutations that enable bacterial escape from protective immunity and isolated a variant with an IS1541insertion incaf1Aencoding the F1 outer membrane usher. Thecaf1A::IS1541insertion prevented assembly of F1 pili and provided escape from plague immunity via F1-specific antibodies without a reduction in virulence in mouse models of bubonic or pneumonic plague. F1-specific antibodies interfere withY. pestistype III transport of effector proteins into host cells, an inhibitory effect that was overcome by thecaf1A::IS1541insertion. These findings suggest a model in which IS1541insertion intocaf1Aprovides for reversible changes in envelope structure, enablingY. pestisto escape from adaptive immune responses and plague immunity.