title: Identification of proteins in Streptococcus pneumoniae by reverse vaccinology and genetic diversity of these proteins in clinical isolates.
abstract: Streptococcus pneumoniae is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Virulence-associated proteins common and conserved among all capsular types now represent the best strategy to combat pneumococcal infections. Our aim was to identify conserved targets in pneumococci that showed positive prediction for lipoprotein and extracellular subcellular location using bioinformatics programs and verify the distribution and the degree of conservation of these targets in pneumococci. These targets can be considered potential vaccine candidate to be evaluated in the future. A set of 13 targets were analyzed and confirmed the presence in all pneumococci tested. These 13 genes were highly conserved showing around >96 % of amino acid and nucleotide identity, but they were also present and show high identity in the closely related species Streptococcus mitis, Streptococcus oralis, and Streptococcus pseudopneumoniae. S. oralis clusters away from S. pneumoniae, while S. pseudopneumoniae and S. mitis cluster closer. The divergence between the selected targets was too small to be observed consistently in phylogenetic groups between the analyzed genomes of S. pneumoniae. The proteins analyzed fulfill two of the initial criteria of a vaccine candidate: targets are present in a variety of different pneumococci strains including different serotypes and are conserved among the samples evaluated.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Recombinant Technology, Bio-Manguinhos, Vice Diretoria de Desenvolvimento Tecnológico, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, acorrea@bio.fiocruz.br.
authors.forename: Ana Paula Corrêa
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Argondizzo
authors.forename: Fabio Faria
authors.initials: FF
authors.lastname: da Mota
authors.forename: Cristiane Pinheiro
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Pestana
authors.forename: Joice Neves
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Reis
authors.forename: Antonio Basílio
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: de Miranda
authors.forename: Ricardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Galler
authors.forename: Marco Alberto
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Medeiros
mesh_terms: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D001483:Base Sequence; D019295:Computational Biology; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D030562:Databases, Protein; D024901:Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D006801:Humans; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D011008:Pneumococcal Infections / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000276:immunology / Q000382:microbiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D022242:Pneumococcal Vaccines / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D013291:Streptococcus / Q000145:classification / Q000187:drug effects / Q000276:immunology* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D034361:Streptococcus mitis / Q000145:classification / Q000187:drug effects / Q000276:immunology* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D019533:Streptococcus oralis / Q000145:classification / Q000187:drug effects / Q000276:immunology* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D013296:Streptococcus pneumoniae / Q000145:classification / Q000187:drug effects / Q000276:immunology* / Q000302:isolation & purification
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D022242:Pneumococcal Vaccines