Population-based analysis of invasive nontypeable pneumococci reveals that most have defective capsule synthesis genes.

ABSTRACT: Since nasopharyngeal carriage of pneumococcus precedes invasive pneumococcal disease, characteristics of carriage isolates could be incorrectly assumed to reflect those of invasive isolates. While most pneumococci express a capsular polysaccharide, nontypeable pneumococci are sometimes isolated. Carriage nontypeables tend to encode novel surface proteins in place of a capsular polysaccharide synthetic locus, the cps locus. In contrast, capsular polysaccharide is believed to be indispensable for invasive pneumococcal disease, and nontypeables from population-based invasive pneumococcal disease surveillance have not been extensively characterized. We received 14,328 invasive pneumococcal isolates through the Active Bacterial Core surveillance program during 2006-2009. Isolates that were nont

SUBMITTER: Park IH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4022640 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature