Q about Yersinia Entercolitica and platelets (please read on)...?

Question

From what I've read, Y. Entercolitica does not lead to activation nor invasion of platelets, but attaches only to the outer surface of platelets.

E.g.,

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11761186?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Assuming this exemplar study is methodologically sound and the info contained within it is correct, could attachment of this bacterium to simply the outer surface of platelets result in either thrombocytopenia or thrombocytosis? I guess, I'm specifically wondering about the link between Y. Entercolitica and petechiae (sometimes associated with thrombocytopenia).

Anyone have any insight, about, well, any of this? Eeeeek, so confused :-) ;-).

Answer 1

It is, as is said, a wonderful world.   I decided as a kid that we are actually a kind of aggregation of cellular colonies doing their own things.  Now I'm more reassured by the G-nome - probably because I don't understand that, either.

Answer 2

Yersinia doe not lead to platelet aggregation, so its relation to petichiae from that angle is less than likely, but the study said nothing about the effect of the attachment and motility in smaller blood vessels.  Anything attached would likely slow when there is a stricture, and petichiae would likely result. Likewise the presence of the bacteria would likely result in thrombocytosis as the body acts to repel or kill it.  The inflamation in the smaller blood vessels would then evidence as petichiae.  Does this make sense?

[Thrombocytopenia is probably due to heparin in the transfused cases, morbidity from Y. Entercolitica is due to sepsis. e.g. :

One recipient (58 year old female) suffered a respiratory and cardiac arrest during transfusion of a second unit of red cells (33 day old, not leucodepleted) and died the same day. Yersinia entercolitica (serotype 09, biotype 3) was isolated from the patient’s blood, the implicated red cell pack, the archive of the implicated donation and a fresh sample of blood taken from the donor 5 months after the donation. On follow-up the donor reported a history of diarrhoea a few weeks prior to the donation.

The probable source of the recipient’s reaction, and cause of death, was concluded to be transfusion with red cells contaminated with Yersinia entercolitica from the donor’s blood.]