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Yop And The Black Death Essay

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In the spring of 1938, one of the deadliest pandemics first emerged along the shores of Italy. Through the examination of historical documents regarding this pandemic, it was discovered that the Black Death, or the plague, was initially spread among several Italian merchant ships on the return to the city of Messina from different regions of Asia, and such a sickness was a mystery to the sailors, as well as to the citizens, whom have succumbed to it (“The Black Death”). After a period of three years, while the pathogen spread throughout all of Europe, it has been estimated that about half of the population succumbed. So much terror was struck into the hearts of men and women that individuals avoided one another in fear of contracting the plague. Even …show more content…

This functions by deregulating the interactions between both the membrane-bound integrins of the focal adhesion complexes as well as the actin cytoskeleton via the dephosphorylation of numerous substrates, including paxillin, SKAP-HOM, Fyn-binding protein, and the focal adhesion kinase that are all existent in macrophages and neutrophils. By interrupting these interactions, phagocytic cells become incapable of consuming Y. pestis. YopH also appears to control many other effects, such as the subdual of the oxidative burst of macrophages (Aepfelbacher, 2004) and the prevention of early calcium signaling present that is present in neutrophils (Andersson et al., 1999). This Yop was also discovered to decrease the functionality of T and B cells as well as hinder the release of chemokines that attract monocytes during an inflammatory response (Cornelis, 2005). Overall, these effects aid Yesinia by disrupting the cells of the immune system which thwarts the initiation of a suitable immune

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