2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Identification of pneumococcal evolutionarily conserved virulence factors
| Project/Area Number |
17H05103
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
Morphological basic dentistry
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| Research Institution | Osaka University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2017-04-01 – 2020-03-31
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| Keywords | 肺炎球菌 / 細菌 / 感染症 / 分子進化 / ワクチン |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Streptococcus pneumoniae is a pathogen that poses one of the greatest threats to human health, including pneumonia, sepsis, and meningitis. In this study, we focused on evolutionarily selective pressures on pneumococcal proteins localized on the bacterial cell surface.
Our results indicate that evolutinarily conserved cell surface proteins function as a virulence factor in pneumococcal infection. Furthermore, molecular evolutional analysis was shown to be a powerful system that reflects the importance of virulence factors in human clinical conditions, since calculations are performed based on bacterial genome diversity following transmission of infection in an uncontrolled population.
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| Free Research Field |
細菌学
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| Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements |
本研究の成果から、ゲノム情報の比較から強く進化が制限されている分子を算出することで、病原因子を推測できることが示唆された。本手法は他の細菌にも適用可能であり、薬剤標的となりうる重要な病原因子を迅速に選出する新たな創薬戦略となりうるものである。
また、肺炎球菌の複数の分子が病原性に果たす役割を解析した結果から、肺炎球菌は、病原性を増悪させる分子だけでなく減弱させる分子を獲得し、両者の協調作用が種の繁栄につながっている可能性が示された。
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