ArticleInfection and immunity2014
Phase variation mediates reductions in expression of surface proteins during persistent meningococcal carriage.
Article in Infection and immunity, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers.
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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
31 citing papers in PubMed, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of bacteriophages on gut microbiome functionality.Gut microbes · 2025Review
- Microevolution and Its Impact on Hypervirulence, Antimicrobial Resistance, and Vaccine Escape inMicroorganisms · 2023Review
- Genetic variants linked to the phenotypic outcome of invasive disease and carriage ofMicrobial genomics · 2023Article
- Variable disruption of epithelial monolayers byMicrobiology (Reading, England) · 2023Article
- Characterization of the Phase-Variable Autotransporter Lav Reveals a Role in Host Cell Adherence and Biofilm Formation in Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae.Infection and immunity · 2022Article
- A recombinant commensal bacteria elicits heterologous antigen-specific immune responses during pharyngeal carriage.Science translational medicine · 2021Article
- Article
- Atypical presentation ofEpidemiology and infection · 2021Article
- Common Adaptive Strategies Underlie Within-Host Evolution of Bacterial Pathogens.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Comparative Analysis ofPathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- Article
- Selective and non-selective bottlenecks as drivers of the evolution of hypermutable bacterial loci.Molecular microbiology · 2020Review
- Neisseria meningitidis: using genomics to understand diversity, evolution and pathogenesis.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2020Review
- Phase variation of a signal transduction system controls Clostridioides difficile colony morphology, motility, and virulence.PLoS biology · 2019Article
- Potentiation of Phase Variation in Multiple Outer-Membrane Proteins During Spread of the Hyperinvasive Neisseria meningitidis Serogroup W ST-11 Lineage.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2019Article
- Phase Variation of NadA in Invasive Neisseria meningitidis Isolates Impacts on Coverage Estimates for 4C-MenB, a MenB Vaccine.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2018Article
- Phase-Variable Genotypes Sweetened by Glycosylation Phenotypes.Journal of bacteriology · 2018Article
- Article
- The impact of bottlenecks on microbial survival, adaptation, and phenotypic switching in host-pathogen interactions.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2017Article
- Regulation ofFEBS open bio · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
15 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Asymptomatic and persistent colonization of the upper respiratory tract by Neisseria meningitidis occurs despite elicitation of adaptive immune responses against surface antigens. A putative mechanism for facilitating host persistence of this bacterial commensal and pathogen is alterations in expression of surface antigens by simple sequence repeat (SSR)-mediated phase variation. We investigated how often phase variation occurs during persistent carriage by analyzing the SSRs of eight loci in multiple isolates from 21 carriers representative of 1 to 6 months carriage. Alterations in repeat number were detected by a GeneScan analysis and occurred at 0.06 mutations/gene/month of carriage. The expression states were determined by Western blotting and two genes, fetA and nadA, exhibited trends toward low expression states. A critical finding from our unique examination of combinatorial expression states, "phasotypes," was for significant reductions in expression of multiple phase-variable surface proteins during persistent carriage of some strains. The immune responses in these carriers were examined by measuring variant-specific PorA IgG antibodies, capsular group Y IgG antibodies and serum bactericidal activity in concomitant serum samples. Persistent carriage was associated with high levels of specific IgG antibodies and serum bactericidal activity while recent strain acquisition correlated with a significant induction of antibodies. We conclude that phase-variable genes are driven into lower expression states during long-term persistent meningococcal carriage, in part due to continuous exposure to antibody-mediated selection, suggesting localized hypermutation has evolved to facilitate host persistence.
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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.