Nucleic acid and amino acid sequences relating to Enterococcus faecalis for diagnostics and therapeutics

Abstract

The invention provides isolated polypeptide and nucleic acid sequences derived from Enterococcus faecalis that are useful in diagnosis and therapy of pathological conditions; antibodies against the polypeptides; and methods for the production of the polypeptides. The invention also provides methods for the detection, prevention and treatment of pathological conditions resulting from bacterial infection.

Description

[0001] This application claims priority of U.S. Provisional application 60 / 055,778, filed Aug. 15, 1997, all of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The invention relates to isolated nucleic acids and polypeptides derived from Enterococcus faecalis that are useful as molecular targets for diagnosis, prophylaxis and treatment of pathological conditions, as well as materials and methods for the diagnosis, prevention, and amelioration of pathological conditions resulting from bacterial infection. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003]Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis) is a gram-positive, facultative, anaerobic cocci, that is widely distributed in nature, animals, and humans. Enterococci are part of the normal gastrointestinal and genital tract flora, and among the 17 known species, E. faecalis is dominant in humans, accounting for 80-90% of clinically isolated specimens, and it exhibits increasing levels of multidrug resistance (Ka...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010] The present invention also provides a genome-wide comparison by FASTA of the predicted amino acid sequences of several E. faecalis open reading frames (ORFs) with the predicted amino acid sequence of several E. faecium ORFs (Table 3). Together, E. faecalis and E. faecium account for >95% of all VRE infections. Genomic comparison of E. faecalis with E. faecium at the sequence, open reading frame (ORF), and gene level provides valuable information on shared targets, which can be exploited in designing diagnostics and therapeutics for VRE. Identifying common essential genes through sequencing and analysis of both genomes provides a much quicker route to these targets, and speeds the progress of probe design for identification of VRE infection, and vaccine compositions for protection from and treatment of these infections.

[0015] A variety of data storage structures are available to a person skilled in the art for creating a computer readable media having recorded thereon a nucleotide sequence of the present invention. The choice of the data storage structure will generally be based on the means chosen to access the stored information. In addition, a variety of data processor programs and formats can be used to store the nucleotide sequence information of the present invention on computer readable media. The sequence information can be represented in a word processing text file, formatted in commercially-available software such as WordPerfect and Microsoft Word, or represented in the form of an ASCII file, stored in a database application, such as DB2, Sybase, Oracle, or the like. A person skilled in the art can readily adapt any number of data processor structuring formats (e.g. text file or database) in order to obtain computer readable media having recorded thereon the nucleotide sequence information of the present invention.

Problems solved by technology

Treatment options for physicians are limited, with the latest strategy being combinations of antimicrobials or the use of new unproven compounds (Moellering, R C Jr.