ArticleInfection and immunity2008
Isolation of Streptococcus pneumoniae biofilm mutants and their characterization during nasopharyngeal colonization.
Article in Infection and immunity, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 93 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
93 citing papers in PubMed, 150 citations in OpenAlex.
- A synopsis of competence-regulated virulence inVirulence · 2026Review
- Biofilm formation during pneumococcal carriage imprints naturally acquired humoral immunity.PLoS pathogens · 2026Article
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- Label-free microscopy enables high-throughput identification of genes controlling biofilm development.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Biological puzzles solved by usingJournal of bacteriology · 2024Review
- Biofilm-dispersed pneumococci induce elevated leukocyte and platelet activation.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2024Article
- Role of the polyamine transporter PotABCD during biofilm formation by Streptococcus pneumoniae.PloS one · 2024Article
- Diverse regulatory pathways modulate bet hedging of competence induction in epigenetically-differentiated phase variants of Streptococcus pneumoniae.Nucleic acids research · 2023Article
- Review
- Carbon source-dependent capsule thickness regulation inFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2023Article
- The Streptococcus pyogenes hyaluronic acid capsule promotes experimental nasal and skin infection by preventing neutrophil-mediated clearance.PLoS pathogens · 2022Article
- CRISPR Contributes to Adhesion, Invasion, and Biofilm Formation in Streptococcus agalactiae by Repressing Capsular Polysaccharide Production.Microbiology spectrum · 2022Article
- Targeted Transcriptomic Screen of Pneumococcal Genes Expressed during Murine and Human Infection.Infection and immunity · 2022Article
- The Microbial Mechanisms of a Novel Photosensitive Material (Treated Rape Pollen) in Anti-Biofilm Process under Marine Environment.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein and Mouse Coronavirus Inhibit Biofilm Formation byInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- A Small Non-Coding RNA Modulates Expression of Pilus-1 Type inMicroorganisms · 2021Article
- Biofilm Formation byApplied and environmental microbiology · 2021Article
- Hemoglobin Induces Early and Robust Biofilm Development inInfection and immunity · 2021Article
- Review
- The serine protease HtrA plays a key role in heat-induced dispersal of pneumococcal biofilms.Scientific reports · 2020Article
33 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Asymptomatic colonization of the nasopharynx by Streptococcus pneumoniae precedes pneumococcal disease, yet pneumococcal colonization factors remain poorly understood. Many bacterial infections involve biofilms which protect bacteria from host defenses and antibiotics. To gain insight into the genetics of biofilm formation by S. pneumoniae, we conducted an in vitro screen for biofilm-altered mutants with the serotype 4 clinical isolate TIGR4. In a first screen of 6,000 mariner transposon mutants, we repeatedly isolated biofilm-overproducing acapsular mutants, suggesting that the capsule was antagonistic to biofilm formation. Therefore, we screened 6,500 additional transposon mutants in an S. pneumoniae acapsular background. Following this approach, we isolated 69 insertions in 49 different genes. The collection of mutants includes genes encoding bona fide and putative choline binding proteins, adhesins, synthases of membrane and cell wall components, extracellular and cell wall proteases, efflux pumps, ABC and PTS transporters, and transcriptional regulators, as well as several conserved and novel hypothetical proteins. Interestingly, while four insertions mapped to rrgA, encoding a subunit of a recently described surface pilus, rrgB and rrgC (encoding the other two pilus subunits) mutants had no biofilm defects, implicating the RrgA adhesin but not the pilus structure per se in biofilm formation. To correlate our findings to the process of colonization, we transferred a set of 29 mutations into the wild-type encapsulated strain and then tested the fitness of the mutants in vivo. Strikingly, we found that 23 of these mutants were impaired for nasopharyngeal colonization, thus establishing a link between biofilm formation and colonization.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.