The presence of the pilus locus is a clonal property among pneumococcal invasive isolates.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Pili were recently recognized in Streptococcus pneumoniae and implicated in the virulence of this bacterium, which led to the proposal of using these antigens in a future pneumococcal vaccine. However, pili were found to be encoded by the rlrA islet that was not universally distributed in the species. We examined the distribution of the pilus islet, using the presence of the rlrA gene as a marker for the locus, among a collection of invasive isolates recovered in Portugal and analyzed its association with capsular serotypes, clusters defined by the pulsed-field gel electrophoretic profiles (PFGE) and multilocus sequence types.

Results

Only a minority of the isolates were positive for the presence of the rlrA gene (27%). There was a high correspondence between the

SUBMITTER: Aguiar SI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2270847 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature