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Nature Reviews. Microbiology Apr 2018The host-adapted human pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae is the causative agent of gonorrhoea. Consistent with its proposed evolution from an ancestral commensal bacterium,... (Review)
Review
The host-adapted human pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae is the causative agent of gonorrhoea. Consistent with its proposed evolution from an ancestral commensal bacterium, N. gonorrhoeae has retained features that are common in commensals, but it has also developed unique features that are crucial to its pathogenesis. The continued worldwide incidence of gonorrhoeal infection, coupled with the rising resistance to antimicrobials and the difficulties in controlling the disease in developing countries, highlights the need to better understand the molecular basis of N. gonorrhoeae infection. This knowledge will facilitate disease prevention, surveillance and control, improve diagnostics and may help to facilitate the development of effective vaccines or new therapeutics. In this Review, we discuss sex-related symptomatic gonorrhoeal disease and provide an overview of the bacterial factors that are important for the different stages of pathogenesis, including transmission, colonization and immune evasion, and we discuss the problem of antibiotic resistance.
Topics: Adaptation, Physiological; Anti-Bacterial Agents; Drug Resistance, Bacterial; Gonorrhea; Humans; Neisseria gonorrhoeae
PubMed: 29430011
DOI: 10.1038/nrmicro.2017.169 -
Methods in Molecular Biology (Clifton,... 2012Neisseria meningitidis (the meningococcus) causes significant morbidity and mortality in children and young adults worldwide through epidemic or sporadic meningitis... (Review)
Review
Neisseria meningitidis (the meningococcus) causes significant morbidity and mortality in children and young adults worldwide through epidemic or sporadic meningitis and/or septicemia. In this review, we describe the biology, microbiology, and epidemiology of this exclusive human pathogen. N.meningitidis is a fastidious, encapsulated, aerobic gram-negative diplococcus. Colonies are positive by the oxidase test and most strains utilize maltose. The phenotypic classification of meningococci, based on structural differences in capsular polysaccharide, lipooligosaccharide (LOS) and outer membrane proteins, is now complemented by genome sequence typing (ST). The epidemiological profile of N. meningitidis is variable in different populations and over time and virulence of the meningococcus is based on a transformable/plastic genome and expression of certain capsular polysaccharides (serogroups A, B, C, W-135, Y and X) and non-capsular antigens. N. meningitidis colonizes mucosal surfaces using a multifactorial process involving pili, twitching motility, LOS, opacity associated, and other surface proteins. Certain clonal groups have an increased capacity to gain access to the blood, evade innate immune responses, multiply, and cause systemic disease. Although new vaccines hold great promise, meningococcal infection continues to be reported in both developed and developing countries, where universal vaccine coverage is absent and antibiotic resistance increasingly more common.
Topics: Age Factors; Animals; Bacterial Capsules; Geography; Humans; Meningitis, Meningococcal; Models, Biological; Neisseria meningitidis; Phenotype; Virulence
PubMed: 21993636
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-61779-346-2_1 -
Current Opinion in Microbiology Feb 2015The recent advances in cellular microbiology, genomics, and immunology has opened new horizons in the understanding of meningococcal pathogenesis and in the definition... (Review)
Review
The recent advances in cellular microbiology, genomics, and immunology has opened new horizons in the understanding of meningococcal pathogenesis and in the definition of new prophylactic intervention. It is now clear that Neissera meningitidis has evolved a number of surface structures to mediate interaction with host cells and a number of mechanisms to subvert the immune system and escape complement-mediated killing. In this review we report the more recent findings on meningococcal adhesion and on the bacteria-complement interaction highlighting the redundancy of these mechanisms. An effective vaccine against meningococcus B, based on multiple antigens with different function, has been recently licensed. The antibodies induced by the 4CMenB vaccine could mediate bacterial killing by activating directly the classical complement pathway or, indirectly, by preventing binding of fH on the bacterial surface and interfering with colonization.
Topics: Bacterial Adhesion; Blood Bactericidal Activity; Complement System Proteins; Host-Pathogen Interactions; Immune Evasion; Meningococcal Infections; Neisseria meningitidis
PubMed: 25461575
DOI: 10.1016/j.mib.2014.11.006 -
Brazilian Journal of Microbiology :... 2017Neisseria gonorrhoeae is the agent of gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted infection with an estimate from The World Health Organization of 78 million new cases in people... (Review)
Review
Neisseria gonorrhoeae is the agent of gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted infection with an estimate from The World Health Organization of 78 million new cases in people aged 15-49 worldwide during 2012. If left untreated, complications may include pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility. Antimicrobial treatment is usually effective; however, resistance has emerged successively through various molecular mechanisms for all the regularly used therapeutic agents throughout decades. Detection of antimicrobial susceptibility is currently the most critical aspect for N. gonorrhoeae surveillance, however poorly structured health systems pose difficulties. In this review, we compiled data from worldwide reports regarding epidemiology and antimicrobial resistance in N. gonorrhoeae, and highlight the relevance of the implementation of surveillance networks to establish policies for gonorrhea treatment.
Topics: Animals; Drug Resistance, Bacterial; Gonorrhea; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Humans; Neisseria gonorrhoeae
PubMed: 28754299
DOI: 10.1016/j.bjm.2017.06.001 -
Cell Host & Microbe Sep 2022Neisseria species are frequently identified in the bronchiectasis microbiome, but they are regarded as respiratory commensals. Using a combination of human cohorts,...
Neisseria species are frequently identified in the bronchiectasis microbiome, but they are regarded as respiratory commensals. Using a combination of human cohorts, next-generation sequencing, systems biology, and animal models, we show that bronchiectasis bacteriomes defined by the presence of Neisseria spp. associate with poor clinical outcomes, including exacerbations. Neisseria subflava cultivated from bronchiectasis patients promotes the loss of epithelial integrity and inflammation in primary epithelial cells. In vivo animal models of Neisseria subflava infection and metabolipidome analysis highlight immunoinflammatory functional gene clusters and provide evidence for pulmonary inflammation. The murine metabolipidomic data were validated with human Neisseria-dominant bronchiectasis samples and compared with disease in which Pseudomonas-, an established bronchiectasis pathogen, is dominant. Metagenomic surveillance of Neisseria across various respiratory disorders reveals broader importance, and the assessment of the home environment in bronchiectasis implies potential environmental sources of exposure. Thus, we identify Neisseria species as pathobionts in bronchiectasis, allowing for improved risk stratification in this high-risk group.
Topics: Animals; Bronchiectasis; Humans; Metagenome; Mice; Microbiota; Neisseria
PubMed: 36108613
DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2022.08.005 -
Microbiology (Reading, England) Dec 2018The principal mechanism of reducing sulfur into organic compounds is via the synthesis of l-cysteine. Cysteine is used for protein and glutathione synthesis, as well as... (Review)
Review
The principal mechanism of reducing sulfur into organic compounds is via the synthesis of l-cysteine. Cysteine is used for protein and glutathione synthesis, as well as being the primary sulfur source for a variety of other molecules, such as biotin, coenzyme A, lipoic acid and more. Glutathione and other cysteine derivatives are important for protection against the oxidative stress that pathogenic bacteria such as Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Neisseria meningitidis encounter during infection. With the alarming rise of antibiotic-resistant strains of N. gonorrhoeae, the development of inhibitors for the future treatment of this disease is critical, and targeting cysteine biosynthesis enzymes could be a promising approach for this. Little is known about the transport of sulfate and thiosulfate and subsequent sulfate reduction and incorporation into cysteine in Neisseria species. In this review we investigate cysteine biosynthesis within Neisseria species and examine the differences between species and with other bacteria. Neisseria species exhibit different arrangements of cysteine biosynthesis genes and have slight differences in how they assimilate sulfate and synthesize cysteine, while, most interestingly, N. gonorrhoeae by virtue of a genome deletion, lacks the ability to reduce sulfate to bisulfide for incorporation into cysteine, and as such uses the thiosulfate uptake pathway for the synthesis of cysteine.
Topics: Biological Transport; Cysteine; Cysteine Synthase; Enzyme Inhibitors; Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; Neisseria; Oxidation-Reduction; Oxidative Stress; Sulfates; Thiosulfates
PubMed: 30307392
DOI: 10.1099/mic.0.000728 -
Frontiers in Cellular and Infection... 2022is a gram-negative diplococcus and a transient commensal of the human nasopharynx. It shares and competes for this niche with a number of other species including and... (Review)
Review
is a gram-negative diplococcus and a transient commensal of the human nasopharynx. It shares and competes for this niche with a number of other species including and . Unlike these other members of the genus, may become invasive, crossing the epithelium of the nasopharynx and entering the bloodstream, where it rapidly proliferates causing a syndrome known as Invasive Meningococcal Disease (IMD). IMD progresses rapidly to cause septic shock and meningitis and is often fatal despite aggressive antibiotic therapy. While many of the ways in which meningococci survive in the host environment have been well studied, recent insights into the interactions between and the epithelial, serum, and endothelial environments have expanded our understanding of how IMD develops. This review seeks to incorporate recent work into the established model of pathogenesis. In particular, we focus on the competition that faces in the nasopharynx from other species, and how the genetic diversity of the meningococcus contributes to the wide range of inflammatory and pathogenic potentials observed among different lineages.
Topics: Host-Pathogen Interactions; Humans; Life Style; Meningococcal Infections; Neisseria; Neisseria meningitidis
PubMed: 35531336
DOI: 10.3389/fcimb.2022.862935 -
Frontiers in Cellular and Infection... 2022
Topics: Neisseria; Virulence; Neisseria gonorrhoeae; Neisseria meningitidis; Vaccines; Drug Resistance, Microbial
PubMed: 36683679
DOI: 10.3389/fcimb.2022.1119244 -
Frontiers in Cellular and Infection... 2022pathogens express a Macrophage Infectivity Potentiator Protein (MIP), which belongs to the FK506 binding protein (FKBP) family of proteins that exhibit peptidyl-prolyl... (Review)
Review
pathogens express a Macrophage Infectivity Potentiator Protein (MIP), which belongs to the FK506 binding protein (FKBP) family of proteins that exhibit peptidyl-prolyl cis/trans isomerase (PPIase) activity. MIP proteins are potential candidates for inclusion into vaccines for gonorrhoea caused by infection, and meningitis/sepsis caused by infection. MIP proteins are also potential targets for directed drug treatments, although this remains relatively unexplored. In this mini-review, we provide an update into the vaccine potential of MIP and the few published drug targeting studies, and explore further the diversity of this protein amongst both pathogenic and commensal spp.
Topics: Bacterial Proteins; Gonorrhea; Humans; Macrophages; Neisseria; Peptidylprolyl Isomerase
PubMed: 35392612
DOI: 10.3389/fcimb.2022.861489 -
MSystems Jun 2022The genus includes two pathogenic species, N. gonorrhoeae and N. meningitidis, and numerous commensal species. species frequently exchange DNA with one another,...
The genus includes two pathogenic species, N. gonorrhoeae and N. meningitidis, and numerous commensal species. species frequently exchange DNA with one another, primarily via transformation and homologous recombination and via multiple types of mobile genetic elements (MGEs). Few bacteriophages (phages) have been identified, and their impact on bacterial physiology is poorly understood. Furthermore, little is known about the range of species that phages can infect. In this study, we used three virus prediction tools to scan 248 genomes of 21 different species and identified 1,302 unique predicted prophages. Using comparative genomics, we found that many predictions are dissimilar from prophages and other MGEs previously described to infect species. We also identified similar predicted prophages in genomes of different species. Additionally, we examined CRISPR-Cas targeting of each genome and predicted prophage. While CRISPR targeting of chromosomal DNA appears to be common among several species, we found that 20% of the prophages we predicted are targeted significantly more than the rest of the bacterial genome in which they were identified (i.e., backbone). Furthermore, many predicted prophages are targeted by CRISPR spacers encoded by other species. We then used these results to infer additional host species of known prophages and predictions that are highly targeted relative to the backbone. Together, our results suggest that we have identified novel prophages, several of which may infect multiple species. These findings have important implications for understanding horizontal gene transfer between members of this genus. Drug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae is a major threat to human health. Commensal species are thought to serve as reservoirs of antibiotic resistance and virulence genes for the pathogenic species N. gonorrhoeae and N. meningitidis. Therefore, it is important to understand both the diversity of mobile genetic elements (MGEs) that can mediate horizontal gene transfer within this genus and the breadth of species these MGEs can infect. In particular, few bacteriophages (phages) are known to infect species. In this study, we identified a large number of candidate phages integrated in the genomes of commensal and pathogenic species, many of which appear to be novel phages. Importantly, we discovered extensive interspecies targeting of predicted phages by CRISPR-Cas systems, which may reflect their movement between different species. Uncovering the diversity and host range of phages is essential for understanding how they influence the evolution of their microbial hosts.
Topics: Humans; Prophages; Neisseria; Host Specificity; Bacteriophages; Genomics; Neisseria gonorrhoeae; Neisseria meningitidis
PubMed: 35418239
DOI: 10.1128/msystems.00083-22