Nonpneumococcal Strains Recently Recovered from Carriage Specimens and Expressing Capsular Serotypes Highly Related or Identical to Pneumococcal Serotypes 2, 4, 9A, 13, and 23A.

The polysaccharide capsule is a key virulence factor of There are numerous epidemiologically important pneumococcal capsular serotypes, and recent findings have demonstrated that several of them are commonly found among nonpathogenic commensal species. Here, we describe 9 nonpneumococcal strains carrying close homologs of pneumococcal capsular biosynthetic () loci that were discovered during recent pneumococcal carriage studies of adults in the United States and Kenya. Two distinct strains cross-reactive with pneumococcal serotype 4 and carrying -like capsular biosynthetic () loci were recovered.

Dried blood spots for Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae detection and serotyping among children < 5 years old in rural Mozambique.

Background: Dried blood spots (DBS) have been proposed as potentially tool for detecting invasive bacterial diseases.

Methods: We evaluated the use of DBS for S. pneumoniae and H.

Mitogen-activated protein kinases, Fus3 and Kss1, regulate chronological lifespan in yeast.

Using a systems-based approach, we have identified several genes not previously evaluated for a role(s) in chronological aging. Here, we have thoroughly investigated the chronological lifespan (CLS) of three of these genes (, and ) and their protein products, each of which have well-defined cell signaling roles in young cells. The importance of and in CLS are largely unknown and analyzed here for the first time.