Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Identification And Phenotypic Characterization Of A Second Collagen Adhesin, Scm, And Genome-Based Identification And Analysis Of 13 Other Predicted Mscramms, Including Four Distinct Pilus Loci, In Enterococcus Faecium, Jouko Sillanpää, Sreedhar R Nallapareddy, Vittal P Prakash, Xiang Qin, Magnus Höök, George M Weinstock, Barbara E Murray

Journal Articles

Attention has recently been drawn to Enterococcus faecium because of an increasing number of nosocomial infections caused by this species and its resistance to multiple antibacterial agents. However, relatively little is known about the pathogenic determinants of this organism. We have previously identified a cell-wall-anchored collagen adhesin, Acm, produced by some isolates of E. faecium, and a secreted antigen, SagA, exhibiting broad-spectrum binding to extracellular matrix proteins. Here, we analysed the draft genome of strain TX0016 for potential microbial surface components recognizing adhesive matrix molecules (MSCRAMMs). Genome-based bioinformatics identified 22 predicted cell-wall-anchored E. faecium surface proteins (Fms), of which 15 …

A Functional Collagen Adhesin Gene, Acm, In Clinical Isolates Of Enterococcus Faecium Correlates With The Recent Success Of This Emerging Nosocomial Pathogen, Sreedhar R Nallapareddy, Kavindra V Singh, Pablo C Okhuysen, Barbara E Murray

Journal Articles

Enterococcus faecium recently evolved from a generally avirulent commensal into a multidrug-resistant health care-associated pathogen causing difficult-to-treat infections, but little is known about the factors responsible for this change. We previously showed that some E. faecium strains express a cell wall-anchored collagen adhesin, Acm. Here we analyzed 90 E. faecium isolates (99% acm(+)) and found that the Acm protein was detected predominantly in clinically derived isolates, while the acm gene was present as a transposon-interrupted pseudogene in 12 of 47 isolates of nonclinical origin. A highly significant association between clinical (versus fecal or food) origin and collagen adherence (P

Pcr-Based Assay Using Occult Blood Detection Cards For Detection Of Diarrheagenic Escherichia Coli In Specimens From Us Travelers To Mexico With Acute Diarrhea, Kevin A Grimes, Jamal A Mohamed, Herbert L Dupont, Ranjit S Padda, Zhi-Dong Jiang, Jose Flores, Jaime Belkind-Gerson, Francisco G Martinez-Sandoval, Pablo C Okhuysen

Journal Articles

Large field studies of travelers' diarrhea for multiple destinations are limited by the need to perform stool cultures on site in a timely manner. A method for the collection, transport, and storage of fecal specimens that does not require immediate processing and refrigeration and that is stable for months would be advantageous. This study was designed to determine if enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) and enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC) DNA could be identified from cards that were processed for the evaluation of fecal occult blood. U.S. students traveling to Mexico during 2005 to 2007 were monitored for the occurrence of diarrheal …

Enterococcus Faecalis Pcfc, A Spatially Localized Substrate Receptor For Type Iv Secretion Of The Pcf10 Transfer Intermediate, Yuqing Chen, Xiaolin Zhang, Dawn Manias, Hye-Jeong Yeo, Gary M Dunny, Peter J Christie

Journal Articles

Upon sensing of peptide pheromone, Enterococcus faecalis efficiently transfers plasmid pCF10 through a type IV secretion (T4S) system to recipient cells. The PcfF accessory factor and PcfG relaxase initiate transfer by catalyzing strand-specific nicking at the pCF10 origin of transfer sequence (oriT). Here, we present evidence that PcfF and PcfG spatially coordinate docking of the pCF10 transfer intermediate with PcfC, a membrane-bound putative ATPase related to the coupling proteins of gram-negative T4S machines. PcfC and PcfG fractionated with the membrane and PcfF with the cytoplasm, yet all three proteins formed several punctate foci at the peripheries of pheromone-induced cells as …

Large Scale Variation In Enterococcus Faecalis Illustrated By The Genome Analysis Of Strain Og1rf, Agathe Bourgogne, Danielle A Garsin, Xiang Qin, Kavindra V Singh, Jouko Sillanpaa, Shailaja Yerrapragada, Yan Ding, Shannon Dugan-Rocha, Christian Buhay, Hua Shen, Guan Chen, Gabrielle Williams, Donna Muzny, Arash Maadani, Kristina A Fox, Jason Gioia, Lei Chen, Yue Shang, Cesar A Arias, Sreedhar R Nallapareddy, Meng Zhao, Vittal P Prakash, Shahreen Chowdhury, Huaiyang Jiang, Richard A Gibbs, Barbara E Murray, Sarah K Highlander, George M Weinstock

Journal Articles

BACKGROUND: Enterococcus faecalis has emerged as a major hospital pathogen. To explore its diversity, we sequenced E. faecalis strain OG1RF, which is commonly used for molecular manipulation and virulence studies.

RESULTS: The 2,739,625 base pair chromosome of OG1RF was found to contain approximately 232 kilobases unique to this strain compared to V583, the only publicly available sequenced strain. Almost no mobile genetic elements were found in OG1RF. The 64 areas of divergence were classified into three categories. First, OG1RF carries 39 unique regions, including 2 CRISPR loci and a new WxL locus. Second, we found nine replacements where a sequence …