the relbe2spn toxin-antitoxin system of streptococcus pneumoniae role in antibiotic tolerance and functional conservation in clinical isolates肺炎链球菌的relbe2spn toxin-antitoxin系统作用在临床分离株抗生素宽容和保护功能.pdfVIP

The relBE2Spn Toxin-Antitoxin System of Streptococcus pneumoniae : Role in Antibiotic Tolerance and Functional Conservation in Clinical Isolates 1 2 3 2 1 Concha Nieto , Ewa Sadowy , Adela G. de la Campa , Waleria Hryniewicz , Manuel Espinosa * ´ ´ 1 Centro de Investigaciones Biologicas, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientıficas, Madrid, Spain, 2 National Medicines Institute, Warsaw, Poland, 3 Centro Nacional ´ de Microbiologıa and CIBER Enfermedades Respiratorias, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Majadahonda, Spain Abstract Type II (proteic) chromosomal toxin-antitoxin systems (TAS) are widespread in Bacteria and Archaea but their precise function is known only for a limited number of them. Out of the many TAS described, the relBE family is one of the most abundant, being present in the three first sequenced strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae (D39, TIGR4 and R6). To address the function of the pneumococcal relBE2Spn TAS in the bacterial physiology, we have compared the response of the R6- relBE2Spn wild type strain with that of an isogenic derivative, DrelB2Spn under different stress conditions such as carbon and amino acid starvation and antibiotic exposure. Differences on viability between the wild type and mutant strains were found only when treatment directly impaired protein synthesis. As a criterion for the permanence of this locus in a variety of clinical strains, we checked whether the relBE2Spn locus was conserved in around 100 pneumococcal strains, including clinical isolates and strains with known