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Volume 157, Issue 6

Role of glucose and CcpA in capsule expression and virulence of Free

Abstract

is one of the most important pathogens in pigs and is also an emerging zoonotic agent. After crossing the epithelial barrier, causes bacteraemia, resulting in meningitis, endocarditis and bronchopneumonia. Since the host environment seems to be an important regulatory component for virulence, we related expression of virulence determinants of to glucose availability during growth and to the sugar metabolism regulator atabolite ontrol rotein (CcpA). We found that expression of the virulence-associated genes , representing operon expression, , representing capsular locus expression, as well as , , and , differed significantly between exponential and early stationary growth of a highly virulent serotype 2 strain. Deletion of altered the expression of the surface-associated virulence factors , and , as well as the two currently proven virulence factors in pigs, and , in early exponential growth. Global expression analysis using a cDNA expression array revealed 259 differentially expressed genes in early exponential growth, of which 141 were more highly expressed in the CcpA mutant strain 10Δ and 118 were expressed to a lower extent. Interestingly, among the latter genes, 18 could be related to capsule and cell wall synthesis. Correspondingly, electron microscopy characterization of strain 10Δ revealed a markedly reduced thickness of the capsule. This phenotype correlated with enhanced binding to porcine plasma proteins and a reduced resistance to killing by porcine neutrophils. Taken together, our data demonstrate that CcpA has a significant effect on the capsule synthesis and virulence properties of .

  • Received:
  • Accepted:
  • Revised:
  • Published Online:
Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
  • DFG (Award SFB 578)
  • Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
© 2011 SGM
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2011-06-01
2024-04-24
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Role of glucose and CcpA in capsule expression and virulence of Streptococcus suis
Microbiology 157, 1823 (2011); https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.046417-0
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.046417-0
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.046417-0
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