A native outer membrane vesicles (NOMV) vaccine was developed from three antigenically diverse strains of Neisseria meningitidis that express the L1,8, L2, and L3,7 lipooligosaccharide (LOS) immunotypes, and whose synX, and lpxL1 genes were deleted.. Immunogenicity studies in mice showed that the vaccine induced bactericidal antibody against serogroups B, C, W, Y and X N. meningitidis strains. ...

BACKGROUND The pathophysiology and outcome of meningococcal septic shock is closely associated with the plasma level of N. meningitidis lipopolysaccharides (LPS, endotoxin) and the circulating level of meningococcal DNA. The aim of the present study was to quantify the number of N. meningitidis in different formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples and fresh frozen (FF) tissue sam...

Plasminogen recruitment is a common strategy of pathogenic bacteria and results in a broad-spectrum surface-associated protease activity. Neisseria meningitidis has previously been shown to bind plasminogen. In this study, we show by several complementary approaches that endolase, DnaK, and peroxiredoxin, which are usually intracellular proteins, can also be located in the outer membrane and ac...

introduction: neisseria meningitidis is a major causative agent of bacterial septicemia and meningitis in human. pora is a major component of the outer membrane of n. meningitidis and functions as a cationic porin. this study aimed to clone and determine the expression of pora as the first step for producing a proper antigen in a vaccine study against n. meningitidis. methods: an approximately ...

Neisseria lactamica, a commensal bacterium that is non-pathogenic to human beings and that is usually found in the upper respiratory tract of children, is closely related to the pathogenic species Neisseria meningitidis. A protocol was proposed to study the immunogenicity of killed whole cells of N. lactamica, N. meningitidis, N. sicca or N. meningitidis c (carrier-isolated) by i.n. immunizatio...

Neisseria meningitidis is a strictly human pathogen and is one of the major causes of septicemia and meningitis worldwide. Functional genomics approaches have been extensively applied to study how N. meningitidis adapts to grow and survive in different human niches encountered during the infection. DNA microarrays performed in in vitro and ex vivo conditions have revealed changes in the transcr...

Entry of Neisseria meningitidis (the meningococcus) into human brain microvascular endothelial cells (HBMEC) is mediated by fibronectin or vitronectin bound to the surface protein Opc forming a bridge to the respective integrins. This interaction leads to cytoskeletal rearrangement and uptake of meningococci. In this study, we determined that the focal adhesion kinase (FAK), which directly asso...

Both Neisseria meningitidis and the closely related bacterium Neisseria lactamica colonise human nasopharyngeal mucosal surface, but only N. meningitidis invades the bloodstream to cause potentially life-threatening meningitis and septicaemia. We have hypothesised that the two neisserial species differentially modulate host respiratory epithelial cell gene expression reflecting their disease po...

The family Neisseriaceae consists of Gram-negative aerobic bacteria from fourteen genera (Bergey's 2001), including Neisseria, Chromobacterium, Kingella, and Aquaspirillum. The genus Neisseria contains two important human pathogens, N. gonorrhoeae and N. meningitidis. N. gonorrhoeae causes gonorrhea, and N. meningitidis is the cause of meningococcal meningitis. N. gonorrhoeae infections have a ...

Neisseria meningitidis, the causative agent of meningitis and septicemia, is able to attach to and invade a variety of cell types. In a previous study we showed that entry of N. meningitidis into human brain microvascular endothelial cells (HBMEC) is mediated by fibronectin bound to the outer membrane protein Opc, which forms a molecular bridge to alpha 5 beta 1-integrins. This interaction resu...