The blp Bacteriocins of Streptococcus pneumoniae Mediate Intraspecies Competition both In Vitro and In Vivo

Abstract excerpt

The introduction of the conjugate seven-valent pneumococcal vaccine has led to the replacement of vaccine serotypes with nonvaccine serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae. This observation implies that intraspecies competition between pneumococci occurs during nasopharyngeal colonization, allowing one strain or set of strains to predominate over others. We investigated the contribution of the blp locus, encoding...