Pili are surface-exposed virulence factors involved in bacterial adhesion to host cells. The Streptococcus pneumoniae pilus is composed of three structural proteins, RrgA, RrgB, and RrgC and three transpeptidase enzymes, sortases SrtC-1, SrtC-2, and SrtC-3. To gain insights into the mechanism of pilus formation we have exploited biochemical approaches using recombinant proteins expressed in Esc...

BACKGROUND The evolution of bacterial organelles involved in host-pathogen interactions is subject to intense and competing selective pressures due to the need to maintain function while escaping the host immune response. To characterize the interplay of these forces in an important pathogen, we sequenced the rlrA islet, a chromosomal region encoding for a pilus-like structure involved in adher...

BACKGROUND Many surface proteins thought to promote Streptocococcus pneumoniae virulence have recently been discovered and are currently being considered as future vaccine targets. We assessed the prevalence of 16 virulence genes among 435 S. pneumoniae invasive isolates from France and the "African meningitis belt" region, with particular focus on serotype 1 (Sp1), to compare their geographica...

Today, the construction industry is facing intense competition and success in this competition depends on several factors. Project managers try to minimize project time and cost, carbon dioxide emission and at the same time maximizing the quality of project and its plan robustness. In this paper, study construction project scheduling considering a discrete trade-off between time, cost, quality,...

Streptococcus agalactiae (or Group B Streptococcus, GBS) is a commensal bacterium present in the intestinal and urinary tracts of approximately 30% of humans. We and others previously showed that the PI-2a pilus polymers, made of the backbone pilin PilB, the tip adhesin PilA and the cell wall anchor protein PilC, promote adhesion to host epithelia and biofilm formation. Affinity-purified PI-2a ...

The adenylate cyclase hemolysin toxin (ACT) is one of the main virulence factors in Bordetella pertussis. It was discovered in 1973 by Wolff and Cook as a contaminant in vaccine formulations against this microorganism. It belongs to the family of toxins that form pores at the plasma membrane of target cells and reaches the highest expression during the virulent phase of the bacteria. This toxin...