{"doi":"10.1093/infdis/jiaa548","title":"Hemolytic Membrane Vesicles of Group B Streptococcus Promote Infection","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Group B streptococci (GBS) are β-hemolytic, Gram-positive bacteria associated with fetal injury, preterm birth, spontaneous abortion, and neonatal infections. A key factor promoting GBS virulence is the β-hemolysin/cytolysin, a pigmented ornithine rhamnolipid (also known as granadaene) associated with the bacterial surface. METHODS: A previous study indicated that GBS produce small structures known as membrane vesicles (MVs), which contain virulence-associated proteins. In this study, we show that GBS MVs are pigmented and hemolytic, indicating that granadaene is functionally active in MVs. RESULTS: In addition, MVs from hyperhemolytic GBS induced greater cell death of neutrophils, T cells, and B cells compared with MVs from isogenic nonhemolytic GBS, implicating MVs as a potential mechanism for granadaene-mediated virulence. Finally, hemolytic MVs reduced oxidative killing of GBS and aggravated morbidity and mortality of neonatal mice infected with GBS. CONCLUSIONS: These studies, taken together, reveal a novel mechanism by which GBS deploy a crucial virulence factor to promote bacterial dissemination and pathogenesis.","journal":"The Journal of Infectious Diseases","year":2020,"id":96064,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":35,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9636,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":476751,"name":"Phoenicia Quach","orcid":"0000-0002-2402-4993","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":268617,"name":"Jessica M. Snyder","orcid":"0000-0002-0470-0931","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":477955,"name":"Verónica Santana-Ufret","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":290170,"name":"Anna Furuta","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":476752,"name":"Alyssa Brokaw","orcid":"0000-0002-2399-4912","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":336527,"name":"Lakshmi Rajagopal","orcid":"0000-0003-3373-2323","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":423571,"name":"Blair Armistead","orcid":"0000-0001-9902-3955","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":48,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T22:34:34.781847Z","pmid":"32861213","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}