Pharmaceutical Analysis Questions from 1991-2007

Introduction

Apart from staphylococcus,just discussed in my previous blog, streptococcus plays a leading role in most of the bacterial infections. Usually,these species are aerobic and are gram-negative in nature. Many are capsulated and capsule is mostly composed of hyaluronic acid.

Determinants of Pathogenicity-

1) Capsule-
Capsule serve an anti-phagocytic activity and serves to prevent phagocytosis by host’s microphages and macrophages.

2) Peptidoglycan-
Peptidoglycan, composed of NANA (N-acetylneuraminic acid), NAGA (N-acetylglucosamine) & N-acetylcarboxyethylglucosamine, serves a pro-inflammatory activity.

3) Endotoxins-
The bacterial LPS (Lipopolysaccharide) is pyrogenic and serves as an endo-toxin. It produces fever in host’s body by directly acting on hypothalamus.