Streptococcus agalactiae
My name is Streptococcus agalactiae. I am a gram positive bacteria. My cell wall is made of a thick peptidoglycan layer. Because of the thick peptidoglycan layer of my cell wall, I can’t be stained using a simple stain method; I have to be stained using the gram stain method. During the gram stain reaction I stain purple and my shape is cocci and I arrange myself as a chainlike structure. My family members are Streptococcus pneumonia, Streptococcus mutans, and Streptococcus pyogenes. I have many different factors. Some of them include respiration, metabolism, and virulence factors. These are the factors that help me to survive. In addition, I am a pathogen that causes several different diseases.
The type of metabolism that I carry out is aerobic metabolism or anaerobic metabolism. I am a facultative anaerobic organism. This means that I am capable of using oxygen or not using oxygen depending on my surrounding environment to generate ATP. The type of respiration that I carry out is aerobic respiration. I am a pathogen that causes diseases in neonates. I usually live in intestine and vagina in about 10-30% of pregnant women. As a result of that, I become too friendly and cause infection in newborns by passing through the birth canal during birth; this could be very harmful. The infection that I cause could create diseases such as meningitis, osteomyelitis, and bacteremia. I also cause infection in the mammary glands of mammals such as cows and sheep. As a result of that, mammals lose their reproductive capacity due to blocked milk channels through inflammation. I possess two main virulence factors that accounts for my pathogenicity; they are pore forming toxins and a sialic acidic rich, antiphagocytic capsular polysaccharide. The capsular polysaccharide helps the bacterium to cause more infections by preventing it from being opsonized and phagocytosed. My pore forming toxins disrupt target cell membrane structures, leading to cell lysis and red blood cell damage. I am not really famous in the news, but further study is currently in process to identify the exact target to control my pathogenesis.
Kingdom: Bacteria
Phylum: Firmicutes
Class: Bacilli
Order: Lactobacillales
Family: Streptococcaceae
Genus: Streptococcus
Species: Streptococcus agalactiae
