BACKGROUND Streptococcus dysgalactiae subspecies equisimilis (SDSE) is an emerging global pathogen that can colonize and infect humans. Although most SDSE isolates possess the Lancefield group G carbohydrate, a significant minority have the group C carbohydrate. Isolates are further sub-typed on the basis of differences within the emm gene. To gain a better understanding of their molecular epid...

Group A Streptococcus (GAS) M protein is an important virulence factor and potential vaccine antigen, and constitutes the basis for strain typing (emm-typing). Although >200 emm-types are characterized, structural data were obtained from only a limited number of emm-types. We aim to evaluate the sequence diversity of near-full-length M proteins from worldwide sources and analyse their structure...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Increasing resistance to erythromycin has been observed worldwide in group C and group G streptococci (GCS/GGS). The information available from India is scanty. The aim of the study was to identify erythromycin resistant GCS/GGS isolates in Chennai, south India, and to compare erythromycin resistant genotypes with emm types. METHODS One hundred and thirty one GCS/GGS i...

Six hundred fifteen isolates of Streptococcus pyogenes were collected over a 6-year period from patients with pharyngitis in Korea. All isolates were characterized in terms of their antibiotic resistance, the phenotypes of erythromycin resistance, the frequencies of erm(B), erm(A), and mef(A) genes, and the emm genotype. The prevalent emm genotypes were emm12 and emm4. Moreover, the emm12 genot...

Extramedullary myeloma (EMM) is defined by the presence of plasma cells (PCs) outside the bone marrow in a patient with multiple myeloma (MM). Using sensitive imaging techniques including magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography/computed tomography, EMM may be found in up to 30% of MM patients across the overall disease course. The molecular mechanisms underlying the hematoge...

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) are the bacterial adaptive immune system against foreign nucleic acids. Given the variable nature of CRISPR, it could be a good marker for molecular epidemiology. Group A streptococcus is one of the major human pathogens. It has two CRISPR loci, including CRISPR01 and CRISPR02. The aim of this study was to analyze the distributi...

BACKGROUND Group A Streptococcus pyogenes (GAS) exhibits a high degree of clinically relevant phenotypic diversity. Strains vary widely in terms of antibiotic resistance (AbR), clinical severity, and transmission rate. Currently, strain identification is achieved by emm typing (direct sequencing of the genomic segment coding for the antigenic portion of the M protein) or by multilocus genotypin...

Streptococcus pyogenes is responsible for a variety of infectious diseases and immunological complications. In this study, 91 isolates of S. pyogenes recovered from oropharynx secretions were submitted to antimicrobial susceptibility testing, emm typing and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) analysis. All isolates were susceptible to ceftriaxone, levofloxacin, penicillin G and vancomycin. ...

The genetic diversity of group A streptococcal (GAS) isolates obtained in 1990 from Ethiopian children with various streptococcal diseases was studied by using emm gene sequence analysis. A total of 217 GAS isolates were included: 155 and 62 isolates from throat and skin, respectively. A total of 78 different emm/st types were detected among the 217 isolates. Of these, 166 (76.5%) belonged to 5...

We examined the role of Streptococcus pyogenes two-component response regulators (SptR) in expression of Mga and the Mga-regulated gene emm. Both serotype M6 and serotype M1 mutants in 12 of the 13 identified sptR genes exhibited levels of emm transcripts and Mga protein comparable to those of the wild type during exponential and stationary phases of growth. Thus, temporal control of these viru...