1 / 6

Jan-Willem Veening Molecular Genetics Department j.w.veening@rug.nl http://molgen.biol.rug.nl

Development of new tools to study the cell biology and origins of phenotypic variation in the human pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae : An overview of recently started projects and future directions. Jan-Willem Veening Molecular Genetics Department j.w.veening@rug.nl http://molgen.biol.rug.nl.

cili
Télécharger la présentation

Jan-Willem Veening Molecular Genetics Department j.w.veening@rug.nl http://molgen.biol.rug.nl

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Development of new tools to study the cell biology and origins of phenotypic variation in the human pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae:An overview of recently started projects and future directions Jan-Willem Veening Molecular Genetics Department j.w.veening@rug.nl http://molgen.biol.rug.nl

  2. Why study Streptococcus pneumoniae? • Human pathogen • Causes e.g. pneumoniae, otitis media, septicaemia, meningitis • Every year >106 deaths worldwide • Transient commensal in ~40% of human population • Resides in nasopharynx • >90 different capsule types • Capsule-polysaccharide vaccination • Vaccine against 23 serotypes • Treatment with antibiotics

  3. Why study Streptococcus pneumoniae? threats: Displacement of vaccine serotypes by other serotypes Invasive disease caused by non-vaccine serotypes Increased antibiotic resistance

  4. Why study Streptococcus pneumoniae? future: Development of protein vaccines and new antimicrobials Need for protein targets that are essential and common in most strains But… cell biology is poorly understood

  5. Why study Streptococcus pneumoniae? • S. pneumoniae needs acomplex regulatory network to regulate host-pathogen interactions • Makes a switch from commensal to pathogen • A common mechanism to elude stresses such as antibiotic stress, immune response stress or to invade the host is by cellular differentiation of a fraction of the clonal population. This heterogeneity can originate from noise that arises during the process of transcription • Phenotypic variation! • Mechanisms poorly understood • Compact genome of about 2 MB • only two sigma factors • Genetically accessible • Naturally competent for transformation • Use of linear DNA (e.g. PCR products) • Single cell analysis toolbox starting to become available

More Related