Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0036690 (sepsis)
 59,461 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Brazilian purpuric fever (BPF) is a recently described pediatric septicemia caused by a strain of Haemophilus influenzae biogroup aegyptius. The pilus specified by this bacterium may be important in BPF pathogenesis, enhancing attachment to host tissue. Here, we report the cloning of two haf (for H. influenzae biogroup aegyptius fimbriae) gene clusters from a cosmid library of strain F3031. We sequenced a 6.8-kb segment of the haf1 cluster and identified five genes (hafA to hafE). The predicted protein products, HafA to HafD, are 72, 95, 98, and 90% similar, respectively, to HifA to HifD of the closely related H. influenzae type b pilus. Strikingly, the putative pilus adhesion, HifE, shares only 44% identity with HafE, suggesting that the proteins may differ in receptor specificity. Insertion of a mini-gammadelta transposon in the hafE gene eliminated hemadsorption. The nucleotide sequences of the haf1 and haf2 clusters are more than 99% identical. Using the recently published sequence of the H. influenzae Rd genome, we determined that the haf1 complex lies at a unique position in the chromosome between the pmbA gene and a hypothetical open reading frame, HI1153. The location of the haf2 cluster, inserted between the purE and pepN genes, is analogous to the hif genes on H. influenzae type b. BPF fimbrial phase switching appears to involve slip-strand mispairing of repeated dinucleotides in the pilus promoter. The BPF-associated H. influenzae biogroup aegyptius pilus system generally resembles other H. influenzae, but the possession of a second fimbrial gene cluster, which appears to have arisen by a recent duplication event, and the novel sequence of the HafE adhesin may be significant in the unusual pathogenesis of BPF.
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PMID:Duplication of pilus gene complexes of Haemophilus influenzae biogroup aegyptius. 893 13

The Brazilian purpuric fever (BPF) clone of Haemophilus influenzae biogroup aegyptius causes a fatal septicaemic disease, resembling fulminant meningococcal sepsis, in children. When isolate F3031 was grown under iron-limiting conditions, the presence of several iron-regulated proteins of 38-110 kDa was revealed by electrophoretic analysis and a Fur homologue was shown by immunoblotting. Dot-blot assays and immunoblotting indicated that BPF cells bound human transferrin and contained transferrin-binding proteins in the outer membrane. However, the binding activity and the biosynthesis of these proteins were detected even under iron-rich conditions. Immunoblot analysis demonstrated the presence of a periplasmic protein related to the ferric iron-binding protein A (FbpA), the major iron-binding protein described in Neisseria spp. However, the FbpA homologue in strain F3031 was constitutively expressed and was smaller than the periplasmic protein detected in H. influenzae type b strain Eagan. The periplasm of strain F3031 also contained a protein related to the Streptococcus parasanguis FimA protein which recently has been shown to be involved in iron acquisition in Yersinia pestis. Although the Eagan and F3031 FimA homologues had a similar mol. wt, of 31 kDa, the expression of the BPF fimA-like gene was not regulated by the iron concentration of the culture medium.
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PMID:Fur and iron transport proteins in the Brazilian purpuric fever clone of Haemophilus influenzae biogroup aegyptius. 1040 13