Allan Elaine, Hussain Haitham A, Crawford Kevin R, Miah Shahjahan, Ascott Zoë K, Khwaja Mahrukh H, Hosie Arthur H F
Division of Microbial Diseases, UCL Eastman Dental Institute, University College London, London, UK.
FEMS Microbiol Lett. 2007 Mar;268(1):47-51. doi: 10.1111/j.1574-6968.2006.00593.x. Epub 2007 Jan 11.
The genetic variability in comC, the gene encoding the quorum-sensing molecule, competence-stimulating peptide (CSP) in Streptococcus mutans is reported. Seven comC alleles encoding three distinct mature CSPs were identified among 36 geographically diverse strains, although, compared with Streptococcus pneumoniae, the amount of predicted amino acid sequence variation is low. In agreement with other studies, significant variation was found in the natural competence for DNA uptake in these strains. However, there was no correlation between the CSP genotype and the ability to transform these strains. Representative strains encoding each of the CSP variants became competent in response to synthetic CSPs of each type. Therefore, in contrast to S. pneumoniae, comC alleles in S. mutans are functionally equivalent and there is no evidence of pherotype specificity.
报道了变形链球菌中群体感应分子——感受态刺激肽（CSP）的编码基因comC的遗传变异性。在36株来自不同地理区域的菌株中鉴定出了7个编码三种不同成熟CSP的comC等位基因，不过，与肺炎链球菌相比，预测的氨基酸序列变异量较低。与其他研究一致，在这些菌株中发现其摄取DNA的天然感受态存在显著差异。然而，CSP基因型与这些菌株的转化能力之间没有相关性。编码每种CSP变体的代表性菌株对每种类型的合成CSP都有反应并变得具有感受态。因此，与肺炎链球菌不同，变形链球菌中的comC等位基因在功能上是等效的，没有证据表明存在表型特异性。
