Competence beyond genes: Filling in the details of the pneumococcal competence transcriptome by a systems approach

Abstract

DNA uptake by natural competence is a central process underlying the genetic plasticity, biology, and virulence of the human respiratory opportunistic pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae. A study reported in this issue (J. Slager, R. Aprianto, and J.-W. Veening, J. Bacteriol. 201:e00780-18, https://doi.org/10.1128/JB.00780-18) combined deep-genome annotation and high-resolution transcriptome analyses to considerably extend the previous model of temporal regulation of competence at the operon and component gene levels. That extended study also provides a playbook for updating, refining, and extending genomic data sets and making them publicly available.