Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Jul 1;77(1):22-43.
doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2958.2010.07189.x. Epub 2010 Apr 27.

PavB is a surface-exposed adhesin of Streptococcus pneumoniae contributing to nasopharyngeal colonization and airways infections

Inga Jensch  1 , Gustavo Gámez, Michael Rothe, Sandra Ebert, Marcus Fulde, Daniela Somplatzki, Simone Bergmann, Lothar Petruschka, Manfred Rohde, Roland Nau, Sven Hammerschmidt
Affiliations
Free article

PavB is a surface-exposed adhesin of Streptococcus pneumoniae contributing to nasopharyngeal colonization and airways infections

Inga Jensch et al. Mol Microbiol. .
Free article

Abstract

The genomic analysis of Streptococcus pneumoniae strains identified the Pneumococcal adherence and virulence factor B (PavB), whose repetitive sequences, designated Streptococcal Surface REpeats (SSURE), interact with human fibronectin. Here, we showed the gene in all tested pneumococci and identified that the observed differences in the molecular mass of PavB rely on the number of repeats, ranging from five to nine SSURE. PavB interacted with fibronectin and plasminogen in a dose-dependent manner as shown by using various SSURE peptides. In addition, we identified PavB as colonization factor. Mice infected intranasally with DeltapavB pneumococci showed significantly increased survival times compared with wild-type bacteria. Importantly, the pavB-mutant showed a delay in transmigration to the lungs as observed in real-time using bioluminescent pneumococci and decreased colonization rates in a nasopharyngeal carriage model. In co-infection experiments the wild-type out-competed the pavB-mutant and infections of epithelial cells demonstrated that PavB contributes to adherence to host cell. Blocking experiments suggested a function of PavB as adhesin, which was confirmed by direct binding of SSURE peptides to host cells. Finally, PavB may represent a new vaccine candidate as SSURE peptides reacted with human sera. Taken together, PavB is a surface-exposed adhesin, which contributes to pneumococcal colonization and infections of the respiratory airways.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

MeSH terms

Associated data

LinkOut - more resources