Martin Cj Maiden

..On balance, the control and possible elimination of disease caused by particular disease-associated meningococcal genotypes is a more achievable and worthwhile goal...

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..Here, we report the results of a survey to assess the prevalence of drg in a globally representative panel of disease-associated meningococci...

..As a result, the diversity of the tbpB gene was investigated in a defined collection of Neisseria species...

..Genomic comparisons of these three bacteria will provide insights into the mechanisms and evolution of pathogenesis in this group of organisms, which are applicable to understanding these processes more generally...

..Here, the same seven locus Neisseria scheme was used to characterize a diverse collection of N. gonorrhoeae isolates to investigate whether this method would allow differentiation among isolates, and to distinguish these three species...

..These must be capable of the storage, retrieval, and analysis of linked phenotypic and genotypic information in an accessible, scalable and computationally efficient manner...

..Here we describe agdbNet, widely applicable web database software that facilitates simultaneous BLAST querying of multiple loci using either nucleotide or peptide sequences...

..The mlstdbNet software enables the implementation of distributed web-accessible MLST databases that can be linked widely over the Internet...

..The rapid development of nucleotide sequence determination and analysis techniques provides the tools necessary for the prosecution of population studies on an increasing number of bacterial pathogens...

..The impact of this intervention on asymptomatic carriage of meningococci was investigated to establish whether serogroup replacement or protection by herd immunity occurred...

..In combination, these results indicated the repeated action of natural selection on meningococcal populations, possibly arising from the coevolutionary dynamic of host-pathogen interactions...

..These are generic approaches and their application to the Neisseria provides a foretaste for their application to the wider bacterial world...

..Carriage of serogroup C meningococci was reduced by 66% (p=0.004). Our results show that MCC vaccines protect against carriage of meningococci that express serogroup C polysaccharide capsules...

..These data are of especial importance with the current, and ongoing, development and introduction of new meningococcal vaccines...

..The increasing speed and reduced cost of nucleotide sequence determination, together with improved web-based databases and analysis tools, present the prospect of increasingly wide application of MLST...

..These results show robust associations of particular genotypes with potential infection sources supporting the contention that contaminated poultry is a major source of human disease...

..If adequate immune responses can be generated, these results suggest that control of meningococcal disease with relatively simple protein component vaccines may be possible...

..These findings are consistent with local and international transmission of host-associated lineages among food animal species and provide a foundation for further improvements in genetic attribution...

..The diversity of this protein is likely to limit its effectiveness as a vaccine component...

..These data show that phylogenetic inference can be used to complement immunological and biochemical data in the choice of vaccine candidates...

..These data demonstrate that the clonal complex, as defined by MLST, is an epidemiologically relevant unit for both long and short-term investigations of C. jejuni epidemiology...

..975 to 0.992 among 620 clinical isolates from Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. This enhanced typing scheme enabled identification of clusters and retained data required for long-range epidemiologic comparisons of isolates...

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..Considerations pertinent to the implementation of high-capacity MLST projects (i.e., those involving thousands of isolates) are discussed...

..Bacterial speciation can therefore occur by mechanisms analogous to those seen in metazoans, where genetic diversification and incipient speciation caused by ecological factors have been reported in several genera...

..meningitidis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Neisseria lactamica sequence type-640. These data are consistent with a role for the hmbR gene in meningococcal disease...

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..It is further recommended that a modified nomenclature be adopted of the form: serogroup: PorA type: FetA type: sequence type (clonal complex), thus: B: P1.19,15: F5-1: ST-33 (cc32)...

..The project demonstrates how molecular typing can be combined with epidemiological data via the Internet for global disease surveillance...

..jejuni populations from chickens and wild birds on the same farm than between the chicken samples, human disease isolates from the same region and national samples of C. jejuni from chicken meat...

..Social behavior, rather than age or sex, can explain the higher frequency of meningococcal carriage among teenagers. A ban on smoking in public places may reduce risk for transmission...

..The use of a common MLST scheme allows direct comparisons of the population biology and molecular epidemiology of these two closely related human pathogens...

..Assignment using this signature enables improved prediction of source for pathogens that undergo frequent genetic recombination...

..Carriage of commensal Neisseria species, such as N. lactamica, that express FetA may be involved in the development of natural immunity to meningococcal disease...

..These data are consistent with the predictions of a mathematical model of strong immune selection upon a system where identical alleles may occupy different loci...

..The patterns of antigenic variant combinations suggested that an OMP-based vaccine with as few as six PorA and five FetA variant sequences could generate homologous immune responses against all 78 isolates examined...

..This suggests that N. lactamica Por, contrary to previous suggestions, may have limited involvement in the development of natural immunity to meningococcal disease and might not be effective as a meningococcal vaccine component...

..We contrast this antigenic structure with the overlapping but relatively stable combinations of the housekeeping genes observed among the same isolates, and use a novel network approach to visualize these relationships...

..Meningococcal Opa repertoire is strongly linked to MLST genotype irrespective of epidemiological sampling and therefore correlates with invasiveness. It is not, however, strongly associated with severity of meningococcal disease...

..The highest levels of selection were observed in regions corresponding to epitopes recognized by previously described bactericidal monoclonal antibodies...

..This study demonstrated the utility of MLST in detecting genetic diversity before and after the slaughter process...

..coli infection. Taken together these analyses are consistent with an evolutionary scenario describing the emergence of agriculture-associated C. coli lineage that is an important human pathogen...

..These findings have general implications for the emergence of lineage structure and virulence in recombining bacterial populations...

..Some participants shared identical isolates with siblings, but none shared identical isolates with their parents. These findings have implications for the design of vaccines based on this organism...

..MLST schemes have been developed for a variety of procaryotic and eucaryotic pathogens and the data generated have contributed to both epidemiological surveillance and fundamental studies of pathogen biology...

..A Web-accessible database describing this nomenclature and its relationship to previous schemes was established (available from: http://neisseria.org/nm/typing/pora)...

..Our data validate and extend previous MLST results for C. albicans, and we propose an optimized system based on sequencing eight gene fragments for routine MLST with this species...

..Furthermore, given the observation that C. jejuni-associated diseases appear to be more severe from November to February, it can be speculated that this may be due to the presence of virulent clones with a limited span of circulation...

..Our data provide strong evidence that S. equi evolved from an ancestral S. zooepidemicus strain and that certain related strains of S. zooepidemicus have a greater propensity to infect particular hosts and tissues...

..This strategy for overexpression and purification is extended to additional membrane proteins from H. pylori and from other bacteria...

..The cyclical nature of endemic meningococcal disease remains unexplained. The purpose of this study was to investigate the mechanisms associated with the increase in the incidence of meningococcal disease...

..It is also the first MLST scheme designed at the outset to incorporate multiple species and should facilitate global epidemiological investigations of the BCC...

..equi and not due to reversion of the vaccine strain...

..Congruence was observed among C. fetus subspecies, sap type, and ST; therefore, MLST confirms that mammalian C. fetus is genetically stable, probably as result of the introduction of a single ancestral clone into a mammalian niche...

..This long-term pattern of evolution was observed in genes distributed throughout the genome, and thereby is the likely result of episodic selection for strains that can escape the host immune response...

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..The committee made various recommendations regarding the species definition in the light of developments in methodologies available to systematists...

..CONCLUSIONS: Serogroup C capsule expression during carriage may contribute to the invasive character of ST-11 complex meningococci and to the high efficacy of meningococcal serogroup C conjugate polysaccharide vaccine...

..albicans as an organism whose primary means of reproduction is clonal, but with a small but important contribution from sexual reproduction, occurring in nature but not under commonly used laboratory conditions...

..The central database for storing and organizing Wolbachia bacterial and host information can be accessed at http://pubmlst.org/wolbachia/...

..These observations are consistent with the postulate that particular meningococcal clonal complexes are associated with possession of a capsule and that this association is important for transmission success...

..The importance of close collaboration between networks of epidemiologists, microbiologists, and the wider scientific and public health community is demonstrated...

..Therefore, this element, by spreading among the population, may promote the development of new epidemic clones of N. meningitidis that are capable of breaking the normal commensal relationship with humans and causing invasive disease...

..Computational haplotype analysis showed a high frequency of recombination events, suggesting that isolates had mixed evolutionary histories resembling those of a sexually reproducing species...

..This finding links the natural environment with the emergence of many Bcc infections...

..Further, they indicated that differences in genotype diversity and pathogenicity exist between meningococcal clone complexes...

..This is consistent with the unpredictable epidemiology of meningococcal disease...

..The C. krusei MLST database can be accessed online at http://pubmlst.org/ckrusei/...

..We suggest a revision of the nomenclature in which the lineage and clone are recognized through name and ST designations in accordance with the clonal structure of the population...

..tropicalis to Candida albicans and Candida glabrata as Candida species for which a multilocus sequence typing (MLST) system has been set up. The C. tropicalis MLST database can be accessed at http://pubmlst.org/ctropicalis/...

..The utility of MLST for determining clade assignments of clinical isolates will form the basis for strain selection for future research into C. albicans virulence...

..Single point mutations are sufficient to remove binding capability, providing a rationale for the manner in which different meningococcal PorA escape variants arise...

..This result lends support to the hypothesis that outbreaks of meningococcal disease are caused by diversity in the pathogenicity of meningococcal strains...

..In this study, we combined a public health approach with genome analysis to provide insight into the correlation of phenotypic characteristics and their genetic basis...

..parapsilosis and relatively high levels of sequence variability among isolates of C. orthopsilosis suggest that the former species may have evolved very recently from the latter...