Surveillance of severe invasive group-G streptococcal infections and molecular typing of the isolates in Japan

Abstract

The number of patients with severe invasive group-G streptococcal (Streptococcus dysgalactiae subsp. equisimilis) infections has been increasing in Japan. The emm genotypes and SmaI-digested pulsed-field gel electrophoresis DNA profiles were variable among the strains isolated, suggesting there has not been clonal expansion of a specific subpopulation of strains. However, all strains carried scpA, ska, slo and sag genes, some of which may be involved in the pathogenesis of the disease.

Molecular emm genotyping and antibiotic susceptibility of Streptococcus dysgalactiae subsp. equisimilis isolated from invasive and non-invasive infections

“…equisimilis possesses many virulence factors shared with GAS, such as M protein (Fischetti, 1989;Schnitzler et al, 1995), streptolysin O (Gerlach et al, 1993;Okumura et al, 1994), streptolysin S (Humar et al, 2002) and streptokinase (Walter et al, 1989;Ikebe et al, 2004). It has been suggested that these factors were transmitted from GAS to this species (Kalia et al, 2001).…”

“…equisimilis strains having group A antigen rather than group C or G antigen have also been reported (Bert & Lambert-Zechovsky, 1997;Brandt et al, 1999;Katsukawa et al, 2002 Notably, S. dysgalactiae subsp. equisimilis possesses many virulence factors shared with GAS, such as M protein (Fischetti, 1989; Schnitzler et al, 1995), streptolysin O (Gerlach et al, 1993Okumura et al, 1994), streptolysin S (Humar et al, 2002 and streptokinase (Walter et al, 1989;Ikebe et al, 2004). It has been suggested that these factors were transmitted from GAS to this species (Kalia et al, 2001).…”

First molecular evidence of intrauterine and surgical-site infections caused by Streptococcus dysgalactiae subsp. equisimilis

“…dysgalactiae subsp. equisimilis (SDSE) is a β-hemolytic streptococci that is increasingly prevalent in human infections, having the similar clinical spectrum of diseases caused by S. pyogenes (Group A Streptococcal infections, GAS) [1,2]. It presents as a pathogen in skin and soft-tissue infections, endocarditis, bacteremia, ocular infection, pneumonia, osteomyelitis, and meningitis [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10].…”

Soft tissue infection caused by Streptococcus dysgalactiae subsp. equisimilis possessing group Aantigen: a and review of the literature

“…Both species have antiphagocytic M protein, encoded by emm [10,35,36] and hyaluronic capsule [10,35]. There are, however, marked differences between them: SDSE, for example, lacks the whole set of genes encoding superantigens, which are mostly of phage origin (spe A, spe B, spe C, spe H, spe I, spe J, spe K, spe L, spe M, ssa, smez) [12,15,24,35,[38][39][40][41][42]. However, scarce occurrences of SDSE strains have been described, having one of those genes [32,43].…”

“…However, scarce occurrences of SDSE strains have been described, having one of those genes [32,43]. The only superantigen gene which is often found in SDSE strains is spe G, which encodes exotoxin G [12,22,24,32,35,36,[39][40][41][42]44]. Between both of these closely related bacteria, interspecies DNA transfer occurs [6,45,46] by means of mobile genetic elements.…”