{"doi":"10.1111/mmi.15115","title":"Heterogeneity of the group B streptococcal type <scp>VII</scp> secretion system and influence on colonization of the female genital tract","abstract":"Type VIIb secretion systems (T7SSb) in Gram-positive bacteria facilitate physiology, interbacterial competition, and/or virulence via EssC ATPase-driven secretion of small ɑ-helical proteins and toxins. Recently, we characterized T7SSb in group B Streptococcus (GBS), a leading cause of infection in newborns and immunocompromised adults. GBS T7SS comprises four subtypes based on variation in the C-terminus of EssC and the repertoire of downstream effectors; however, the intraspecies diversity of GBS T7SS and impact on GBS-host interactions remains unknown. Bioinformatic analysis indicates that GBS T7SS loci encode subtype-specific putative effectors, which have low interspecies and inter-subtype homology but contain similar domains/motifs and therefore may serve similar functions. We further identify orphaned GBS WXG100 proteins. Functionally, we show that GBS T7SS subtype I and III strains secrete EsxA in vitro and that in subtype I strain CJB111, esxA1 appears to be differentially transcribed from the T7SS operon. Furthermore, we observe subtype-specific effects of GBS T7SS on host colonization, as CJB111 subtype I but not CNCTC 10/84 subtype III T7SS promotes GBS vaginal colonization. Finally, we observe that T7SS subtypes I and II are the predominant subtypes in clinical GBS isolates. This study highlights the potential impact of T7SS heterogeneity on host-GBS interactions.","journal":"Molecular Microbiology","year":2023,"id":334677,"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":21,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9681,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1063507,"name":"Alyx M. Job","orcid":"0000-0003-3210-2768","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1063508,"name":"Clare M. Robertson","orcid":"0000-0003-1915-9495","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1064121,"name":"Zainab A. Hameed","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1064122,"name":"Camille Serchejian","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1063509,"name":"Caitlin S. Wiafe‐Kwakye","orcid":"0000-0003-3705-0274","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":351253,"name":"Jéssica da C. Mendonça","orcid":"0000-0002-2555-4582","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1064123,"name":"Morgan A. Apolonio","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":578267,"name":"Prescilla Emy Nagao","orcid":"0000-0001-6007-0033","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1063510,"name":"Melody N. Neely","orcid":"0000-0003-2125-7836","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":573534,"name":"Natalia Korotkova","orcid":"0000-0002-8696-4892","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":573535,"name":"Konstantin V. Korotkov","orcid":"0000-0002-2182-6843","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":225239,"name":"Kathryn A. Patras","orcid":"0000-0003-2631-8810","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":351256,"name":"Kelly S. Doran","orcid":"0000-0003-4232-6837","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":351249,"name":"Brady L. Spencer","orcid":"0000-0003-4374-6403","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":84,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:09:53.742667Z","pmid":"37357823","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":[]}