Virulence and oxidative stress in Streptococcus pneumoniae

Funded Activity Summary

Streptococcus pneumoniae is an important human pathogen that causes pneumonia, meningitis and bacteraemia as well as otitis media in young children. It is a cause of high morbidity and mortality around the world. S. pneumoniae grows by fermentative metabolism, a characteristic of anaerobic organisms, but it is able to adapt towards oxygen in the environment. This adaptive ability enables S. pneumoniae to live under conditions of high oxygen tension (eg. the upper respiratory tract) or under almost anaerobic conditions (eg. the middle ear) in the human body. The emergence of antibiotic resistant pneumococci and limitations of current vaccines has led to increased interest in understanding the molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis of this bacterium. Of particular interest has been the pneumococcal surface antigen PsaA, which has been shown to be a protective immunogen in mice. It has also been shown that psaA mutants exhibit massively reduced virulence in mice in intranasal and intraperitoneal challenge models. Taken together, these data have led to the suggestion that PsaA might be an effective vaccine antigen or antimicrobial target. We postulate that PsaA is involved in the oxidative stress response and virulence under aerobic conditions and have devised a study to determine the procise role of this protein in disease caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2003

End Date: 01-01-2003

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $110,125.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Allergy

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Gene regulation | Oxidative stress | Streptococcus pneumoniae | bacterial virulence factors | pathogenesis | psaA | respiratory tract infection | streptococcal disease

Related Links