FIG 4.

RafX-mediated WTA biosynthesis is highly conserved in closely related streptococci. rafX is conserved in pneumococcal strains and S. mitis W1. A 1,433-bp rafX fragment composed of the full-length open reading frame of rafX and the upstream sequence was PCR amplified from pneumococcal strains. E. coli BL21 served as the negative control. The positions of size markers are indicated on the left of the top panel. The bottom panel shows the WTA-PG banding patterns of clinical strains obtained by Western blotting with TEPC-15. The letter I in parentheses denotes an invasive strain, and the following number indicates the assigned strain number. The letter C in parentheses denotes a carriage strain. ST, sequence type.