Development of protection for systemic and oral infection by control of oral microbes.

中间链球菌是一种口腔共生菌，是全身性化脓性疾病的病因之一。生物体的一部分具有卷曲状的菌毛。基因组分析表明，菌毛的操纵子是典型的菌毛基因操纵子，至少由4个ORF组成。FIMI被预测为编码486个氨基酸的蛋白质FIMI的结构亚基。含有FIMI基因的链球菌群中的菌株仅限于血清g型，不能分型。FIMI内的基因敲除突变体也不参与唾液介导的聚集。突变株对涂有唾液凝集素的塑料水井的黏附活性约为亲本菌株的65%。

Streptococcus intermedius is an oral commensal and a cause of systemic pyogenic disease. A part of the organism possessed curly-like fimbriae. Genomic analyses showed that the operon of the fimbriae was a typical pilus gene operon and constructed of at least 4 ORFs. A fimI was predicted to be the structural subunit encoding the 486-amino acid protein, FimI. Strains of the Streptococcus anginosus group containing the fimI gene were restricted to serotype g and untypable,. Knockout mutants within fimI did not participate in saliva-mediated aggregation either. The adherent activity of mutants toward plastic wells coated with salivary agglutinin was about 65% that of the parent strain.