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Opa protein repertoires of disease-causing and carried meningococci

Martin J Callaghan1, Caroline Buckee, Noel D McCarthy

  • 1Dept of Paediatrics, Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford, Churchill Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DU, United Kingdom. martin.callaghan@paediatrics.ox.ac.uk

Journal of Clinical Microbiology
|May 30, 2008
PubMed

Insights

Meningococcal Opa protein repertoires, crucial for cell invasion, strongly correlate with multilocus sequence typing (MLST) genotypes, indicating invasiveness. However, Opa diversity does not significantly link to the clinical severity of meningococcal disease.

Area of Science:

  • Microbiology
  • Pathogenesis
  • Genetics

Background:

  • Meningococcal Opa proteins are key virulence factors mediating Neisseria meningitidis invasion of human cells.
  • Understanding Opa protein diversity is crucial for deciphering meningococcal pathogenesis and disease outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To compare Opa protein repertoires between disease-associated and asymptomatically carried Neisseria meningitidis.
  • To investigate the association between Opa repertoire diversity and the clinical severity of meningococcal disease.

Main Methods:

  • Comparative analysis of Opa repertoires from 227 disease-associated and 190 carried meningococcal isolates.
  • Multidimensional scaling (MDS) to correlate Opa repertoires with multilocus sequence typing (MLST) genotypes.
  • Statistical analysis to assess the association between Opa diversity and clinical severity.

Main Results:

  • High diversity observed in Opa alleles, variable regions, and repertoires.
  • MDS revealed a strong association between MLST genotypes and specific Opa repertoires.
  • No significant association found between individual Opa proteins or repertoires and clinical severity, though opaD locus showed a trend.

Conclusions:

  • Meningococcal Opa repertoire is strongly linked to MLST genotype, irrespective of epidemiological context, correlating with invasiveness.
  • Opa protein repertoire diversity is not a strong predictor of meningococcal disease severity.

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