Genomic studies could impact pneumococcal disease vaccine design

A revolutionary genomic surveillance study has provided the clearest picture yet of the arms race between Streptococcus pneumoniae, the bacterium responsible for a range of illnesses such as pneumococcal disease, and the vaccines designed to protect against the most dominant types. A strain called GPSC10 was found to be a particular threat, due to its increased virulence, ability to transform its structure to evade vaccines and its resistance to several common antibiotics. The study was recently published in Lancet Microbe. The research was led by the Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK, the French National Reference Center for Pneumococci and Hospital Sant Joan de Deu, Spain as part of the Global Pneumococcal Sequencing (GPS) project. Since 2000, a series of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) have been deployed that have targeted S. pneumoniae serotypes responsible for most disease cases in infants, resulting in a reduction in disease worldwide. Currently, PCV-13 targets 13 serotypes and PCVs...