Colonization with Streptococcus pneumoniae is mostly symptomless, but can progress to respiratory or even systemic disease. We investigated nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae in healthy children under five years of age in Central Lombok Regency, Indonesia. This cross sectional study was carried out in 2012 among 1,200 healthy children aged 2 to 60 months. A multiplex sequential...

BACKGROUND Childhood community acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a significant problem in developing countries, and confirmation of microbial etiology is important for individual, as well as public health. However, there is paucity of data from a large cohort, examining multiple biological specimens for diverse pathogens (bacteria and viruses). The Community Acquired Pneumonia Etiology Study (CAPES) ...

UNLABELLED The transmission of the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus) marks the first step toward disease development. To date, our ability to prevent pneumococcal transmission has been limited by our lack of understanding regarding the factors which influence the spread of this pathogen. We have previously developed an infant mouse model of pneumococcal transmission which wa...

Streptococcus pneumoniae is bactericidal to Staphylococcus aureus in vitro. To determine whether this in vitro effect accounts for the inverse relation between S. pneumoniae and S. aureus colonization reported in previous epidemiologic studies, we compared S. pneumoniae and S. aureus strains from cocolonized children to those from noncocolonized children. Cocolonizing pneumococci were less bact...

OBJECTIVES The first objective was to investigate the in vitro activity of telithromycin against respiratory tract pathogens in comparison with other antimicrobial agents. The second objective was to identify the influence of the erm(B) and mef(A) genes on the susceptibility of Streptococcus pneumoniae to telithromycin. METHODS The in vitro activity of telithromycin against S. pneumoniae, Mor...

Macrophages are less effective than DC at priming naive CD4(+) T cells, suggesting that DC are unique in initiating T cell-dependent Ab responses. We compared the ability of DC and macrophages, pulsed in vitro with Streptococcus pneumoniae, to elicit protein- and polysaccharide-specific Ig isotype production upon adoptive transfer into naive mice. S. pneumoniae-activated DC secreted more proinf...

Cell surface lipoproteins are important for the full virulence of several bacterial pathogens, including Streptococcus pneumoniae. Processing of prolipoproteins seems to be conserved among different bacterial species, and requires type II signal peptidase (Lsp) mediated cleavage of the N-terminal signal peptide to form the mature lipoprotein. Lsp has been suggested as a target for new antibioti...

Pneumonia caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae is a major cause of death and an economic burden worldwide. S. pneumoniae is an intermittent colonizer of the human upper respiratory tract, and the ability to control asymptomatic colonization determines the likelihood of developing invasive disease. Recognition of S. pneumoniae by resident macrophages via Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR-2) and the macrop...

Streptococcus pneumoniae is the most common organism responsible for community acquired pneumonia and meningitis. In pneumococcal pneumonia, a strong local inflammatory cytokine response reduces the frequency of bacteremia and increases survival. The initiation of this cytokine response by innate recognition of bacterial cell wall components through TLR has been described, but the role of solub...

The in vitro activity of a novel 8-methoxyquinolone, BAY 12-8039, against recent clinical isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae (n = 404), Haemophilus influenzae (n = 330), and Moraxella catarrhalis (n = 250) was evaluated. Activity was compared to those of six other fluoroquinolones: ciprofloxacin, clinafloxacin, levofloxacin, ofloxacin, sparfloxacin and trovafloxacin. BAY 12-8039 and clinaflox...