Streptococcus suis infection: An emerging/reemerging challenge of bacterial infectious diseases?

Feng, Youjun; Zhang, Huimin; Wu, Zuowei; Wang, Shihua; Cao, Min; Hu, Dan; Wang, Changjun

It is of interest to search for other virulence-related or immunological regulatory elements, different from 89K PAI, because of recent exciting findings on this issue. 160 Safe and effective vaccines that can be used for patients is still not available, which is due to lack of comprehensive knowledge of S. suis infections. Description of a full picture of S. suis surface antigen proteins might be helpful to screen and/or design vaccine molecules candidate. The fact that non-SS2 serotypes of S. suis can affect humans and even lead to fatal infections, has put the situation of S. suis infection in a much more complicated and serious status in public health. This might be an alternate way to decode the genome sequences of all 35 kinds of different serotypes, providing new insights into evolution and diversity of heterogeneous species, as well as distinct clues for preventing and controlling severe infections by these pathogens. 191, 192 Systematic proteomic approaches are also encouraged to further address this question, which can complement genomics-based explorations. 138 In summary, our understanding and response to the situation of S. suis infections occurring especially in southeast Asia is not satisfactory. It would be helpful to integrate representative virulent/avirulent strains from different countries/regions for collaborative investigations. Therefore, there is a long way to go toward the complete conquest of S. suis, an emerging human pathogen.