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Definition of a bacterial virulence factor: sialylation of the group B streptococcal capsule.
Open accessAbstract
Sialylation of bacterial capsules has been proposed as an important virulence factor for several species of encapsulated pathogens, including group B Streptococcus. We have constructed a transposon mutant strain of type III group B Streptococcus that expresses a capsular polysaccharide differing from the wild type only in that the mutant strain's capsule lacks sialic acid. The mutant polysaccharide is antigenically identical to the capsular polysaccharide of type 14 Streptococcus pneumoniae, as predicted by the structures of the type III group B Streptococcus and S. pneumoniae polysaccharides. Loss of capsular sialic acid was associated with loss of virulence in the mutant strain in a neonatal rat model of lethal group B Streptococcus infection. These studies demonstrate directly that capsular sialic acid is a critical virulence determinant for type III group B Streptococcus and support the general hypothesis that surface sialylation aids pathogenic microorganisms in evading host defenses.
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Cited by
Navarre, W. W., & Schneewind, O. (1999) · Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews · doi:10.1128/mmbr.63.1.174-229.1999 · Cited by 1,391
Hyams, C., Camberlein, E., Cohen, J. M., Bax, K., & Brown, J. S. (2010) · Infection and Immunity · doi:10.1128/iai.00881-09 · Cited by 458
Scavenger receptors: role in innate immunity and microbial pathogenesis
Areschoug, T., & Gordon, S. (2009) · Cellular Microbiology · doi:10.1111/j.1462-5822.2009.01326.x · Cited by 317
Boyle, M. J., Reiling, L., Feng, G., Langer, C., Osier, F. H., Aspeling-Jones, H., Cheng, Y. S., Stubbs, J., Tetteh, K. K. A., Conway, D. J., et al. (2015) · Immunity · doi:10.1016/j.immuni.2015.02.012 · Cited by 306
Masquerading microbial pathogens: capsular polysaccharides mimic host-tissue molecules
Cress, B. F., Englaender, J. A., He, W., Kasper, D., Linhardt, R. J., & Koffas, M. A. G. (2014) · FEMS Microbiology Reviews · doi:10.1111/1574-6976.12056 · Cited by 282
“meningitides types B and C, and Group B Streptococcus polysaccharides have capsules that inhibit alternative complement activation by these mechanisms (Stevens et al., 1978; Wessels et al., 1989).”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Wessels, M. R., Rubens, C. E., Benedí, V. J., & Kasper, D. L.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 1989-11
- Volume
- 86
- Issue
- 22
- Pages
- 8983-8987
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- OpenAlex
- W2084807013
- Cited by
- 216
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 5.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Definition of a bacterial virulence factor: sialylation of the group B streptococcal capsule. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1073/pnas.86.22.8983
- The paper
- Wessels, M. R., Rubens, C. E., Benedí, V. J., & Kasper, D. L. (1989). Definition of a bacterial virulence factor: sialylation of the group B streptococcal capsule. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.86.22.8983
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
