title: Prevalence and genetic diversity of two adhesion-related genes, pilE and nadA, in Neisseria meningitidis in China.
abstract: The main Neisseria meningitidis adhesion molecules, type IV pili (Tfp) and Neisseria adhesion A (NadA), play important roles in the pathogenesis of invasive meningococcal disease. PilE is the major Tfp subunit. In this study, the prevalence and genetic diversity of pilE and nadA were investigated in the prevalent serogroups and clonal complexes (CC) of N. meningitidis isolated in China. All serogroup A strains belonging to CC1 and CC5 and all CC11 serogroup W135 strains were clustered into class II PilE clades. All serogroup C and most of serogroup B isolates except CC8 and ST5642 were class I PilE clades. Class II pilE sequences were highly conserved. All isolates belonging to class I PilE isolates were nadA negative. However, nadA-positive strains were exclusively found in CC5 and CC11 isolates (class II PilE). This study showed that PilE and NadA may be related to epidemic or endemic meningococcal disease.
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, and State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Shao
mesh_terms: D018829:Adhesins, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008589:Meningococcal Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology*; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009345:Neisseria meningitidis / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D010802:Phylogeny; D015995:Prevalence; D016415:Sequence Alignment
chemical_list: D018829:Adhesins, Bacterial; C501982:NadA protein, Neisseria meningitidis