To achieve maximum fitness, pathogens must balance growth with tissue damage,
coordinating metabolism and virulence factor expression. In the gram-positive bacterium
Streptococcus pyogenes, the DNA-binding transcriptional regulator Carbon Catabolite
Protein A (CcpA) is a master regulator of both carbon catabolite repression and virulence,
suggesting it coordinates growth/damage balance. To examine this, two murine models
were used to compare the virulence of a mutant lacking CcpA with a mutant expressing …