Evolution of transcription regulatory genes is linked to niche specialization in the bacterial pathogen Streptococcus pyogenes.

ABSTRACT: Streptococcus pyogenes is a highly prevalent bacterial pathogen, most often giving rise to superficial infections at the throat or skin of its human host. Three genotype-defined subpopulations of strains exhibiting strong tropisms for either the throat or skin (specialists) or having no obvious tissue site preference (generalists) are recognized. Since the microenvironments at the throat and skin are distinct, the signal transduction pathways leading to the control of gene expression may also differ for throat versus skin strains of S. pyogenes. Two loci (mga and rofA/nra) encoding global regulators of virulence gene expression are positioned 300 kb apart on the genome; each contains alleles forming two major sequence clusters of approximately 25 to 30% divergence that are under balancing

SUBMITTER: Bessen DE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1151717 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature