Synthetic genetic oscillators demonstrate the functional importance of phenotypic variation in pneumococcal-host interactions.

Phenotypic variation is the phenomenon in which clonal cells display different traits even under identical environmental conditions. This plasticity is thought to be important for processes including bacterial virulence, but direct evidence for its relevance is often lacking. For instance, variation in capsule production in the human pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae has been linked to different clinical outcomes, but the exact relationship between variation and pathogenesis is not well understood due to complex natural regulation.

Rewiring capsule production by CRISPRi-based genetic oscillators demonstrates a functional role of phenotypic variation in pneumococcal-host interactions.

Phenotypic variation is the phenomenon in which clonal cells display different traits even under identical environmental conditions. This plasticity is thought to be important for processes including bacterial virulence, but direct evidence for its relevance is often lacking. For instance, variation in capsule production in the human pathogen has been linked to different clinical outcomes, but the exact relationship between variation and pathogenesis is not well understood due to complex natural regulation.

Mechanistic basis of choline import involved in teichoic acids and lipopolysaccharide modification.

Phosphocholine molecules decorating bacterial cell wall teichoic acids and outer-membrane lipopolysaccharide have fundamental roles in adhesion to host cells, immune evasion, and persistence. Bacteria carrying the operon that performs phosphocholine decoration synthesize phosphocholine after uptake of the choline precursor by LicB, a conserved transporter among divergent species. is a prominent pathogen where phosphocholine decoration plays a fundamental role in virulence.

Mini PG10 as a Convenient and Effective Production Host for Lantibiotics.

Efficient bacterial cell factories are important for the screening and characterization of potent antimicrobial peptides such as lantibiotics. Although lantibiotic production systems have been established in and , the industrial workhorse has been left relatively unexplored as a lantibiotic production host. Therefore, we tested different strains for their ability to produce lantibiotic peptides by using the subtilin modification and transport enzymes derived from the natural subtilin producer ATCC 6633.

Three New Integration Vectors and Fluorescent Proteins for Use in the Opportunistic Human Pathogen .

Here, we describe the creation of three integration vectors, pPEPX, pPEPY and pPEPZ, for use with the opportunistic human pathogen . The constructed vectors, named PEP for Pneumococcal Engineering Platform (PEP), employ an IPTG-inducible promoter and BglBrick and BglFusion compatible multiple cloning sites allowing for fast and interchangeable cloning. PEP plasmids replicate in and harbor integration sites that have homology in a large set of pneumococcal strains, including recent clinical isolates.