Phage shock proteins B (PspB) and C (PspC) are integral cytoplasmic membrane proteins involved in inducing the Yersinia enterocolitica Psp stress response. A fundamental aspect of these proteins that has not been studied in depth is their membrane topologies. Various in silico analyses universally predict that PspB is a bitopic membrane protein with the C terminus inside. However, similar analy...

Adherence of Streptococcus pneumoniae is directly mediated by interactions of adhesins with eukaryotic cellular receptors or indirectly by exploiting matrix and serum proteins as molecular bridges. Pneumococci engage vitronectin, the human adhesive glycoprotein and complement inhibitor, to facilitate attachment to epithelial cells of the mucosal cavity, thereby modulating host cell signaling. I...

Differential expression of pneumococcal virulence proteins has been demonstrated. We previously demonstrated challenge route-dependent differences in pneumococcal surface protein C (PspC) expression during bacteremia. In this study, we investigated differences in PspC expression during the transition of pneumococci from the peritoneum to the blood. Time course analysis of PspC expression using ...

Pneumococcal surface protein C (PspC) is a virulence factor of Streptococcus pneumoniae previously shown to play a role in bacterial adherence, invasion, and evasion of complement. We investigated the role of this protein in our murine models of pneumococcal pneumonia with different pneumococcal strains. The deletion of pspC in strains of serotypes 2, 3, and 19F did not significantly alter host...

Genomic analysis reveals extensive sequence variation and hot spots of recombination in surface proteins of Streptococcus pneumoniae While this phenomenon is commonly attributed to diversifying selection by host immune responses, there is little mechanistic evidence for the hypothesis that diversification of surface protein antigens produces an immune escape benefit during infection with S. pne...

Pneumococcal surface protein A (PspA) and PspC of Streptococcus pneumoniae are surface virulence proteins that interfere with complement deposition and elicit protective immune responses. The C-terminal halves of PspA and PspC have some structural similarity and contain highly cross-reactive proline-rich (PR) regions. In many PR regions of PspA and PspC, there exists an almost invariant nonprol...

background and objectives:   many surface proteins are implicated in nasopharyngeal colonization and pathogenesis of streptococcus pneumoniae . some of these factors are candidate antigens for protein based vaccines. new vaccine designs focus on the surface proteins (e. g., pspa and pspc ) and also cytolysin, and pneumolysin. in this study, 3 key virulence genes, lyta , pspc , and rrga , which ...

Pneumococcal surface protein C (PspC) of Streptococcus pneumoniae is a key virulence factor that mediates adhesion to host cells and immune evasion of the host complement. PspC binds the host immune and complement regulator factor H, which is composed of 20 short consensus repeats (SCR). This interaction contributes to pneumococcal virulence. In this study, we identified within the factor H pro...