title: Vaccination Drives Changes in Metabolic and Virulence Profiles of Streptococcus pneumoniae.
abstract: The bacterial pathogen, Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus), is a leading cause of life-threatening illness and death worldwide. Available conjugate vaccines target only a small subset (up to 13) of >90 known capsular serotypes of S. pneumoniae and, since their introduction, increases in non-vaccine serotypes have been recorded in several countries: a phenomenon termed Vaccine Induced Serotype Replacement (VISR). Here, using a combination of mathematical modelling and whole genome analysis, we show that targeting particular serotypes through vaccination can also cause their metabolic and virulence-associated components to transfer through recombination to non-vaccine serotypes: a phenomenon we term Vaccine-Induced Metabolic Shift (VIMS). Our results provide a novel explanation for changes observed in the population structure of the pneumococcus following vaccination, and have important implications for strain-targeted vaccination in a range of infectious disease systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Eleanor R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Watkins
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Bridget S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Penman
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: José
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lourenço
authors.affiliation: Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Caroline O
authors.initials: CO
authors.lastname: Buckee
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Martin C J
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Maiden
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Sunetra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gupta
mesh_terms: D054884:Host-Pathogen Interactions / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D011008:Pneumococcal Infections / Q000276:immunology*; D022242:Pneumococcal Vaccines / Q000276:immunology*; D012703:Serotyping; D013296:Streptococcus pneumoniae / Q000276:immunology / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D014611:Vaccination; D018074:Vaccines, Conjugate / Q000276:immunology; D014774:Virulence
chemical_list: D022242:Pneumococcal Vaccines; D018074:Vaccines, Conjugate