p. 732
In this chapter two highly related zoonotic bacterial pathogens that cause strikingly different illnesses —Yersinia psedotuberculosis, the cause of foodborne gastrointestinal illness, and Yersinia pestis, the flea-borne agent of the plague— will vividly illustrate the power of such microbial attributes as type III secretion systems, horizontal gene transmission, the second messenger cyclic di-GMP, and biofilms to transform pesky fleas into agents of the Black Death.