ArticleMolecular microbiology2014
A large genomic island allows Neisseria meningitidis to utilize propionic acid, with implications for colonization of the human nasopharynx.
Article in Molecular microbiology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mycobacterium tuberculosis VadK is required for the regulation of the methylcitrate cycle and virulence.EMBO reports · 2026Article
- Acetyl-Phosphate Dependent Protein Acetylation in Neisseria gonorrhoeae.MicrobiologyOpen · 2026Article
- VadK, a Non-Canonical Kinase that Regulates the Methylcitrate Cycle and is Essential forbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Review
- Neisseria meningitidis Sibling Small Regulatory RNAs Connect Metabolism with Colonization by Controlling Propionate Use.Journal of bacteriology · 2023Article
- Narrative review of application of metagenomic approaches to study the link between oropharyngeal microbiome and infectious diseases.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Review
- Thiostrepton, a resurging drug inhibiting the stringent response to counteract antibiotic-resistance and expression of virulence determinants inFrontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Article
- Review
- EngineeringJournal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Oropharyngeal microbiome of a college population following a meningococcal disease outbreak.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Propionate metabolism in a human pathogenic fungus: proteomic and biochemical analyses.IMA fungus · 2020Article
- Article
- Sulfobacillus thermotolerans: new insights into resistance and metabolic capacities of acidophilic chemolithotrophs.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- The primary transcriptome of Neisseria meningitidis and its interaction with the RNA chaperone Hfq.Nucleic acids research · 2017Article
- The Hfq regulon ofFEBS open bio · 2017Article
- Article
- HexR Controls Glucose-Responsive Genes and Central Carbon Metabolism in Neisseria meningitidis.Journal of bacteriology · 2015Article
- Arginine-Ornithine Antiporter ArcD Controls Arginine Metabolism and Interspecies Biofilm Development of Streptococcus gordonii.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2015Article
- Global transcriptome analysis reveals small RNAs affecting Neisseria meningitidis bacteremia.PloS one · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Neisseria meningitidis is an important human pathogen that is capable of killing within hours of infection. Its normal habitat is the nasopharynx of adult humans. Here we identify a genomic island (the prp gene cluster) in N. meningitidis that enables this species to utilize propionic acid as a supplementary carbon source during growth, particularly under nutrient poor growth conditions. The prp gene cluster encodes enzymes for a methylcitrate cycle. Novel aspects of the methylcitrate cycle in N. meningitidis include a propionate kinase which was purified and characterized, and a putative propionate transporter. This genomic island is absent from the close relative of N. meningitidis, the commensal Neisseria lactamica, which chiefly colonizes infants not adults. We reason that the possession of the prp genes provides a metabolic advantage to N. meningitidis in the adult oral cavity, which is rich in propionic acid-generating bacteria. Data from classical microbiological and sequence-based microbiome studies provide several lines of supporting evidence that N. meningitidis colonization is correlated with propionic acid generating bacteria, with a strong correlation between prp-containing Neisseria and propionic acid generating bacteria from the genus Porphyromonas, and that this may explain adolescent/adult colonization by N. meningitidis.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.