The competence system of Streptococcus anginosus and its use for genetic engineering

Abstract

Streptococcus anginosus is considered a human commensal but improvements in species identification in recent years highlighted its role as an emerging pathogen. However, our knowledge about the pathogenicity mechanisms in this species is rare. One reason for this is the lack of published genetic manipulation techniques in the Streptococcus anginosus group. To establish a novel mutation technique we investigated the competence system of S. anginosus and created a Cre-recombinase based mutation method that allows the generation of markerless gene deletions in S. anginosus. In silico analysis of the competence system demonstrated that S. anginosus encodes homologues for the vast majority of genes that are known to be essential for the transformation of S. pneumoniae. Analysis of transformation kinetics confirmed that S. anginosus SK52 possesses a S. pneumoniae-like competence development with a rapid increase of competence after CSP treatment reaching a maximum transformation efficiency of 0.24% ± 0.08%. The combination of CSP induced transformation and the Cre-lox system allows the efficient and fast creation of markerless gene deletions and will facilitate the investigation of the pathogenicity of S. anginosus on a genetic level.

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