{"doi":"10.7554/elife.83946","title":"A frameshift in Yersinia pestis rcsD alters canonical Rcs signalling to preserve flea-mammal plague transmission cycles","abstract":"Multiple genetic changes in the enteric pathogen Yersinia pseudotuberculosis have driven the emergence of Yesinia pestis , the arthropod-borne, etiological agent of plague. These include developing the capacity for biofilm-dependent blockage of the flea foregut to enable transmission by flea bite. Previously, we showed that pseudogenization of rcsA , encoding a component of the Rcs signalling pathway, is an important evolutionary step facilitating Y. pestis flea-borne transmission. Additionally, rcsD, another important gene in the Rcs system, harbours a frameshift mutation. Here, we demonstrated that this rcsD mutation resulted in production of a small protein composing the C-terminal RcsD histidine-phosphotransferase domain (designated RcsD-Hpt) and full-length RcsD. Genetic analysis revealed that the rcsD frameshift mutation followed the emergence of rcsA pseudogenization. It further altered the canonical Rcs phosphorylation signal cascade, fine-tuning biofilm production to be conducive with retention of the pgm locus in modern lineages of Y. pestis . Taken together, our findings suggest that a frameshift mutation in rcsD is an important evolutionary step that fine-tuned biofilm production to ensure perpetuation of flea-mammal plague transmission cycles.","journal":"eLife","year":2023,"id":349319,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":10,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9482,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1092527,"name":"Haiqin Yan","orcid":"0000-0003-1063-3840","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1092528,"name":"Wenhui Yang","orcid":"0009-0007-1994-7033","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":230595,"name":"Zhe Yin","orcid":"0000-0003-0530-7100","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":408878,"name":"Viveka Vadyvaloo","orcid":"0000-0003-4842-0525","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":95890,"name":"Dongsheng Zhou","orcid":"0000-0003-3827-5969","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1092529,"name":"Yicheng Sun","orcid":"0000-0002-5790-7071","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1092526,"name":"Xiao-Peng Guo","orcid":"0000-0001-5745-2866","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":95,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:12:14.919810Z","pmid":"37010269","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}