The burden of invasive pneumococcal disease, while dramatically reduced in the PCV7 era, is still a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the USA. In addition, serotype replacement with ...

researcher Oswald Avery and his colleagues at the Rockefeller University in New York were performing detailed analyses of the pneumococcal cell capsule and the role of this capsule in infections.

Capsular locus for the 91 pneumococcal serotypes is between 10 and 30 kb in length and is flanked by the conserved dexB and aliA genes. The marked heterogeneity within the capsular operon has been ...