The streptococcal inhibitor of complement (SIC) protects Streptococcus pyogenes from bacteriocin-like inhibitory substance (BLIS) from Streptococcus salivarius.

Streptococcus salivarius inhibits the growth of Streptococcus pyogenes in vitro. Streptococcus pyogenes has various virulence factors, including the streptococcus inhibitor of complement (SIC). Although SIC inhibits the activity of the peptides LL-37 and NAP1, the relationship between SIC and the bacteriocin-like inhibitory substance (BLIS) has not been elucidated. Here, we evaluated whether S. salivarius BLIS affects S. pyogenes SIC. We created three deltasic mutant strains from three S. pyogenes strains and performed deferred antagonism assays. The test strains were BLIS-positive S. salivarius JCM5707 and BLIS-negative S. salivarius NCU12. Deferred antagonism assays with JCM5707 showed that the inhibitory zones in the three deltasic mutant strains were wider than those in the three wild-type strains. Streptococcus pyogenes was cultured in BLIS-containing broth and the change in SIC in the supernatant was assessed by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE). The 2-DE analysis of S. pyogenes exoproteins with the JCM5707 supernatant showed reduced SIC compared with those without the JCM5707 supernatant. Changes in sic mRNA levels affected by S. salivarius BLIS were evaluated by a reverse transcriptase-PCR. The sic mRNA level was affected more by the BLIS-positive S. salivarius than by the BLIS-negative strain. Our result indicates that SIC plays a role in the inhibition of S. salivarius BLIS.

Growth phase-dependent effect of clindamycin on production of exoproteins by Streptococcus pyogenes.

The administration of high-dose clindamycin plus benzylpenicillin has been recommended for the treatment of streptococcal toxic shock-like syndrome caused by Streptococcus pyogenes, and clindamycin has been found to be more effective than beta-lactams in retrospective analyses of human cases. Although therapeutic doses of clindamycin have also been shown to be effective against experimental infections and clindamycin has great efficacy against the production of bacterial exoproteins, we recently reported that the level of production of some exoproteins was unchanged or even increased by a subinhibitory dose of clindamycin when it is added upon the initiation of bacterial culture and the treated cultures were analyzed by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. In this study we further examined the effect of clindamycin on the production of exoproteins by adding it to Streptococcus pyogenes cultures during various growth phases. We found that the levels of production of some proteins, NAD+ glycohydrolase, streptolysin O, and streptococcal inhibitor of complement, were increased when clindamycin was added at early-log-phase growth, which was the result that was seen when clindamycin was added at the beginning of culture. However, clindamycin inhibited the production of most types of proteins when it was administered to Streptococcus pyogenes cultures at mid-log-phase growth. In csrS- or mga-knockout bacterial strains, the increase in exoproteins seen in parental strains was considerably inhibited. Our study indicates that the in vitro effect of clindamycin on the production of exoproteins greatly depends on the growth phase of bacteria and some regulatory factors of Streptococcus pyogenes that are involved in this phenomenon.