Streptococcus pyogenes, also known as group A Streptococcus (GAS), is a human pathogen that causes diverse human diseases including streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS). A GAS outbreak occurred in Brasilia, Brazil, during the second half of the year 2011, causing 26 deaths. Whole genome sequencing was performed using Illumina platform. The sequences were assembled and genes were predicted ...

BACKGROUND Group A streptococcus (GAS) causes invasive disease, superficial disease, and can asymptomatically colonize humans. Superantigens are one virulence factor found in GAS. Previous studies found associations between the genes that encode superantigens and emm type of GAS. It is unknown if these associations are due to underlying biological factors that limit the distribution of superant...

Streptococcus pyogenes M/emm3 strains have been epidemiologically linked with enhanced infection severity and risk of streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS), a syndrome triggered by superantigenic stimulation of T cells. Comparison of S. pyogenes strains causing STSS demonstrated that emm3 strains were surprisingly less mitogenic than other emm-types (emm1, emm12, emm18, emm28, emm87, emm89)...

In an attempt to compare the epidemiology of severe Streptococcus pyogenes infection within Europe, prospective data were collected through the Strep-EURO program. Surveillance for severe cases of S. pyogenes infection diagnosed during 2003 and 2004 was undertaken in 11 countries across Europe by using a standardized case definition and questionnaire. Patient data as well as bacterial isolates ...

Streptococcus pyogenes appears to be almost exclusively restricted to humans, with few reports on isolation from animals. We provide a detailed characterization (emm typing, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis [PFGE], and multilocus sequence typing [MLST]) of 15 S. pyogenes isolates from animals associated with different clinical backgrounds. We also investigated erythromycin resistance mechanisms...

Breast cancer with bone metastasis accounts for serious cancer-associated pain which significantly reduces the quality of life affected patients and promotes progression. However, effective treatment using nanomedicine remains a formidable challenge owing to poor drug delivery efficiency multiple lesions inappropriate management pain. In this study, engineered macrophage membrane (EMM) drugs lo...

Using sequence analysis to detect variation within the hypervariable M protein N terminus, we found 41 emm types encompassing 81 subtypes, among 1064 consecutive invasive group A streptococcus isolates from a recent multistate, population-based surveillance. Seventeen of the 30 emm types represented by multiple isolates displayed multiple subtypes. Most subtypes differed from reference strain e...

(st4529, st4547, st4532, st4545, and st3018, with accession numbers AF060368, AF052426, AF077666, AF077668, and AF077669, respectively). The newly found group A st4545 sequence was more similar to various group G streptococcal emm sequences than to known group A emm sequences. One group G isolate had a previously found group G 5' emm sequence (stLG6, accession number U25741). The nongroupable S...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE Group A streptococcus (GAS) causes a wide variety of life threatening diseases in developing countries like India. Characterization of GAS is therefore necessary for prevention and control of the disease. Genotypic analysis of GAS is largely lacking from India, therefore an attempt was made to study the genotype distribution of north Indian GAS isolates. METHODS Sixty c...

BACKGROUND NOGA left ventricular (LV) electromechanical mapping (EMM) can be used to distinguish among infarcted, ischemic, and normal myocardium. We investigated the use of percutaneous LV EMM to assess the efficacy of myocardial gene transfer (GTx) of naked plasmid DNA encoding for vascular endothelial growth factor (phVEGF(165)), administered during surgery by direct myocardial injection in ...