In-vitro susceptibility of 299 Neisseria meningitidis and 157 Streptococcus pneumoniae strains from meningitis patients in The Netherlands in 1993 and 1994 to meropenem was determined using the Etest. Susceptibility to penicillin, ceftriaxone, and chloramphenicol was also determined. Rifampicin susceptibility was additionally tested for N. meningitidis. Of the meningococci, 4.3% were of interme...

BACKGROUND With the upcoming licensure of Outer Membrane Protein-based vaccines against meningococcal disease, data on disease incidence and molecular characteristic of circulating N. meningitidis strains in Latin American countries is needed. Chile is, to date, one of the few countries in the region that has performed this type of work in a comprehensive collection of disease-associated strain...

Neisseria meningitidis (N. meningitidis) serogroup C sequence type (ST)-4821 caused an outbreak in 2010 in Shandong province of China. Twenty-one non-outbreak-associated strains were isolated, along with twenty-eight N. meningitides serogroup C ST-4821 isolates. Therefore, it's essential to identify and clarify characterization of the real outbreak-associated strains with a rapid method during ...

BACKGROUND This study aimed the use of mesoporous silica under the naturally transformable Neisseria meningitidis, an important pathogen implicated in the genetic horizontal transfer of DNA causing a escape of the principal vaccination measures worldwide by the capsular switching process. This study verified the effects of mesoporous silica under N. meningitidis transformation specifically unde...

The cellular fatty acid composition of 20 isolates of Neisseria gonorrhoeae and 21 isolates of N. meningitidis was examined by gas-liquid chromatography. Each isolate of the two species possessed similar fatty acid profiles which were characterized by five major acids, accounting for 80 to 85% of the total. The three most abundant acids in each species were palmitic, palmitoleic, and beta-hydro...

This report describes the C-to-B capsular switching in four Neisseria meningitidis strains belonging to the electrophoretic type 37 (ET-37) complex. In particular, one strain belonged to the new sequence type 1860, which was first detected in the year 2000 in Italy and is now frequently isolated. The presence of switched serogroup B strains deserves special attention if they prove as able to sp...

Neisseria meningitidis is a human exclusive pathogen that can lead to invasive meningococcal disease or may be carried in the upper respiratory tract without symptoms. The relationship between carriage and disease remains poorly understood but it is widely accepted that decreasing carriage by immunization should lead to a reduction of invasive cases. Latin America has experienced an increased i...

A century of traditional vaccinology lost the fight against meningococcus serogroup B (MenB). However, thanks to an innovative genome-based approach, the first broadly effective MenB vaccine, Bexsero® (GSK Vaccines), was developed and has been licensed for use in various age groups by the European Commission and other regulatory authorities. Genes encoding for the main meningococcus B antigens ...