Kmeilak Week 11

Preparation for Journal Club on Streptococcus pneumoniae

10 Novel Biological Terms

1. isolate - to obtain (a substance or microorganism) in an uncombined or pure state. [1]
2. transpeptidase - an enzyme that catalyzes the transfer of an amino acid residue or a peptide residue from one amino compound to another [2]
3. beta-hemolytic - capable of causing a sharply defined clear colorless zone of hemolysis surrounding colonies of certain streptococci on blood agar plates [3] [4]
4. otitis media - acute or chronic inflammation of the middle ear; especially : an acute inflammation especially in infants or young children that is caused by a virus or bacterium, usually occurs as a complication of an upper respiratory infection, and is marked by earache, fever, hearing loss, and sometimes rupture of the tympanic membrane [5]
5. intergenic - occurring between genes : involving more than one gene [6]
6. fosmid - An f-factor cosmid, which is like a plasmid (circular DNA), but it is capable of containing much larger pieces of DNA, up to 50 kb compared to about 10 kb in a plasmid. [7]
7. contigs - Group of clones representing overlapping regions of a genome. [8]
8. bacteriocins - any of a group of substances, e.g., colicin, released by certain bacteria that kill other strains of bacteria by inducing metabolic block. [9]
9. efflux pumps - An active transport system for the removal of some antibiotics (such as tetracyclines, macrolides, and quinolones) from bacterial cells. [10]
10. sortase - Any of a group of prokaryotic enzymes that form pili through cleavage and isopeptide bonding of precursors. [11]

Article Outline

• Streptococcus pneumoniae causes over 1 million deaths worldwide annually, and despite a wide array of antibiotics and a vaccine, it remains among the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States. Nearly one-third of patient isolates in the United States are resistant to penicillin and there are a growing number of multiple antibiotic resistant strains. The sequencing of its genome was done to find new antibiotic targets to aid in drug therapy and treatment for patients, and to prevent this organism from continuing to cause such high numbers of deaths even in a developed country with an excellent healthcare system.
• Methods: S. pneumoniae strain R6 was used for sequencing. Genomic DNA was isolated, purified using multiple phenol extractions and ethanol precipitations, sheared, sized fractioned, and used to create plasmid and fosmid libraries. DNA sequences were analyzed by PHRED, PHRAP, and CONSED. The sequence was analyzed and annotated using several programs for gene prediction, similarity searching, and functional assignment, and the results were imported into a relational database based on the Microsoft SQL server.

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Kmeilak (talk) 21:20, 12 September 2013 (PDT)