Streptococcus pneumoniae TIGR4 Phase-Locked Opacity Variants Differ in Virulence Phenotypes.

ABSTRACT: Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) is a leading human pathogen that can cause serious localized and invasive diseases. Pneumococci can undergo a spontaneous and reversible phase variation that is reflected in colony opacity and which allows the population to adapt to different host environments. Generally, transparent variants are adapted for nasopharyngeal colonization, whereas opaque variants are associated with invasive disease. In recent work, colony phase variation was shown to occur by means of recombination events to generate multiple alleles of the hsdS targeting domain of a DNA methylase complex, which mediates epigenetic changes in gene expression. A panel of isogenic strains were created in the well-studied S. pneumoniae TIGR4 background that are "locke

SUBMITTER: Oliver MB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5687919 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov-Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature