all the definitions used herein are part of the common knowledge of a person skilled in this art and reference is made to the general scientific literature . specific reference can be made to wo02 / 37115 , wo03 / 080839 , wo03 / 010199 , wo03 / 011903 and wo2004 / 056851 , which disclose and refer to the phage display technique the present inventors identified three new pneumococcal gene products by using the phage display technology that can be efficiently used as targets for drug treatment and immune - based measures to control bacterial infections , as well as means to diagnose pneumococcal disease . to reach this objective , they used bacteriophage lambda display library of pneumococcal whole genome for the screening with immune sera . they identified three previously unknown pneumococcal protein fragments encoded by open the reading frames ( orf ), hereinafter defined as spr1370 , spr1875 and spr1120 . said protein fragments contained b - cell epitopes , and thus can be used for diagnostic purposes and immuno - based strategies for the prevention and treatment of bacterial infections . moreover , they showed that the entire products of the corresponding genes may likely represent important targets for drug therapy and prophylaxis . since these gene products are highly conserved among bacterial pathogens , they can be effectively used for controlling a number of different infectious diseases caused by microbes with similar sequences , as identified by homology searches in nucleic acid data bases using servers such as clustalw ( www . ebi . ac . uk / clustalw /). the selection from the desired phage display library is performed as known in the art from the above cited references ( wo02 / 37115 , wo03 / 080839 , wo03 / 010199 ; wo03 / 011903 and wo2004 / 056851 ). briefly , to select the bacterial gene product from a display library , a serum pool is obtained from animals , preferably mice , immunized with the killed strain , resuspended and administered to animals , preferably via subcutaneous injection . then , the sera from immunized animals are collected and used for the library screening . the display library is affinity - selected using the immune serum pool and the resulting phage population is analyzed by phage elisa . at the end of the selection procedures , the phage clones bearing protein sequences that matched with the genome sequence of the bacterial strain are identified . the genome sequences above identified are then molecularly characterized by comparative analysis with other strains in gene bank databases . the genome sequences identified , and the sequences that hybridize under stringent conditions , encode for amino acid sequences containing epitopes , generating an antibody response . such amino acid sequences and fragments can be used for the preparation of pharmaceutical compositions , preferably vaccines . the preparation of pharmaceutical compositions and vaccines is within the framework of general knowledge ; for further reference purposes , the reader is referred to the patent literature cited and incorporated by reference in the present description . see for example wo2007 / 081583 and wo2007 / 071786 and the references cited therein . the diagnostic method for detecting bacterial infections comprises the following steps : a ) contacting a biological sample of a subject with at least one peptide of the present invention ; b ) detecting antigen - antibody complex formation . preferably , the biological sample is collected from the subject before executing step a ). the diagnostic kits which are object of the present invention are known to the expert in the field but , by the way of an example , the reader is referred to u . s . pat . no . 6 , 265 , 176 and wo01 / 63283 . to select pneumococcal gene products from a display library , a serum pool obtained from five mice ( 6 - week - old cba / jico mice ) immunized with the killed s . pneumoniae d39 strain was used . briefly , 10 7 cfu were re - suspended in freund &# 39 ; s adjuvant and administered to animals via subcutaneous injection at days 0 and 21 . at day 35 , sera from immunized mice were collected and used for library screening . construction of the pneumococcal library has been previously described ( beghetto e ., et al ., int . j . parasitol ., 2003 ; 33 ( 2 ): 163 - 73 ; minenkova o ., et al ., int . j . cancer , 2003 ; 10 ; 106 ( 4 ): 534 - 44 ; beghetto e ., et al ., fems microbiol . lett ., 2006 ; 262 ( 1 ): 14 - 21 ). in order to identify encoded protein fragments , the display library was affinity - selected using the immune serum pool . three rounds of affinity - selection were performed and the resulting phage population was analyzed , after every round of selection , for its immunoreactivity by phage elisa ( beghetto e ., et al ., fems microbiol . lett ., 2006 ; 262 ( 1 ): 14 - 21 ). at the end of the selection procedures , phage clones bearing distinct protein regions that matched the genome sequence of s . pneumoniae r6 ( genbank accession no . ae007317 ) were identified . three protein fragments named spm4 , r4 , spm8 , encoded by regions of orf spr1370 , spr1875 , and spr1120 respectively , were identified . orf spr1370 consists of 1653 nucleotides and encodes for a hypothetical protein of 551 aa . the protein has a calculated molecular mass of 60 . 8 k da and does not have a secretory signal peptide . comparative analysis of the r6 strain - spr1370 gene with sequences from different pneumococci reveals that the protein is present in all the investigated strains belonging to different serotypes ( 19f , 6b , 2 , 4 , 23f ). orf spr1120 matches with the sequence of an abc transporter membrane - spanning permease - glutamine transport gene . it encodes for a 731 aa - protein with a signal peptide of 67 aa length . the protein has a calculated molecular mass of 78 . 3 kda . the 1140 nucleotide - long orf spr1875 encodes for a 380 aa protein with a 25 aa - secretory signal peptide . s . pneumoniae mutants were constructed by gene soeing ( horton r . m ., et al ., biotechniques , 1990 ; 8 ( 5 ): 528 - 35 ), as previously described ( iannelli f ., et al ., j . bacteriol ., 1999 april ; 181 ( 8 ): 2652 - 4 ). in the mutants , the sprx gene was replaced by an antibiotic - resistance cassette ( pearce b . j ., et al ., res microbiol ., 2002 ; 153 ( 4 ): 243 - 7 ), for this purpose , six oligonucleotide primers for each mutant were used . a first pair of primers was used to amplify the 5 ′ flanking region , a second pair was used to amplify the 3 ′ flanking region , and the last pair was used to generate an erythromycin resistance cassette . the whole fragment , assembled by pcr reaction ( horton r ., et al ., gene ., 1989 ; 77 : 61 - 68 ), was used to transform s . pneumoniae d39 strain cells . the mutant construction was verified by pcr and sequencing . the spr1370 , spr1875 , and spr1120 - deficient strains were named tf137 , tf187 and tf112 , respectively . pneumococcal strains were grown in todd - hewitt ( th ) broth in a 7 % co 2 - enriched atmosphere at 37 ° c . where necessary , streptomycin ( 500 μgml − 1 ) and erythromycin ( 1 μgml − 1 ) were used to select mutants . streptococcus pneumoniae d39 ( wild type ) and tf137 , tf187 and tf112 mutant strains , were grown to mid log phase ( od 600 nm = 0 . 4 ) in 20 ml of th broth . importantly , no differences were found between any of the mutant strains and the parental one in their ability to grow in vitro . cells were collected and washed twice , and then resuspended in pbs in a final volume of 2 ml . six to eight - week old female cd1 mice were inoculated with diluted samples containing the indicated cfu by intravenous injection . serial dilutions of the inoculums were plated on th + 1 . 5 % agar , and incubated at 37 ° c . in 7 % co 2 to verify bacterial colony forming units ( cfu / ml ). fig2 shows the virulence of tf137 , tf187 and tf112 mutants compared to that of the d39 wild - type strain . inoculation of 3 × 10 4 cfu of the wild - type strain resulted in rapid death of 50 % of animals ( panel a ), while 7 × 10 4 cfu were sufficient to produce 100 % lethality ( panel b ). in striking contrast the tf137 mutant , where the spr1370 gene was deleted , was totally impaired in causing lethality , even at doses of 2 × 10 7 cfu . only at doses of 2 × 10 8 half of the infected animals died ( panel d ). these data indicated that the virulence of the spr1370 mutant was approximately 4 orders of magnitude lower than that of the wild - type strain . the figure also shows lethality of mice that were inoculated the tf187 and the tf112 strains , which were also considerably less virulent than the d39 wild - type strain . for example with the tf112 strain , in which the spr1120 gene was deleted , lethality was observed only at doses of 2 × 10 6 cfu or higher ( panels c and d ). the tf187 strain was also less virulent than the d39 mutant , although it did cause lethality at doses of 7 × 10 4 cfu or higher . in further experiments ( not shown ) groups of mice were inoculated with 1 × 10 7 cfu of d39 or the tf137 mutant and sacrificed after 24 and 48 hours to examine the presence of bacteria in the blood and kidneys . while high bacterial counts were observed in mice inoculated with the d39 strain , no bacteria were observed in tf137 - inoculated animals , confirming the inability of pneumococci to survive in vivo in the absence of the spr1370 gene . the comparison with the sequences of other strains in the gene bank databases showed that spr1370 is conserved in streptococcus gordonii , streptococcus sanguinis , streptococcus mutans , streptococcus thermophilus , streptococcus suis , and streptococcus agalactiae ( fig3 ). the comparison with the sequences of other strains in the gene bank databases showed that spr 1875 is conserved in streptococcus sanguinis , streptococcus thermophilus , streptococcus pyogenes , streptococcus gordonii , streptococcus agalactiae , streptococcus suis ( fig4 ). the comparison with the sequences of other strains in the gene bank databases showed that spr 1120 is conserved in streptococcus sanguinis , streptococcus mutans , streptococcus suis , streptococcus agalactiae , streptococcus pyogenes , streptococcus thermophilus , lactococcus lactis , streptococcus gordonii , enterococcus faecalis , enterococcus faecium , rhodococcus sp ( fig5 ). fig6 shows the ability of a polypeptide ( designated as r4 and encoded by spr1875 ) to protect , after immunization , mice against lethal pneumococcal infection . the r4 sequence was cloned into an expression vector and r4 was produced recombinantly fused to glutathione s transferase ( gst ), as previously described ( beghetto et al , fems microbiol lett , 2006 ; 262 : 1421 ). mice were immunized with r4 - gst for 3 times at days intervals in freund &# 39 ; s adjuvant and challenged intravenously with a lethal dose of the d39 s . pneumoniae strain . control animals received gst only . while 13 out of 18 ( 72 %) of the latter mice died , only 5 of the 18 mice immunized with r4 - gst succumbed to infection ( p & lt ; 0 . 02 by fisher exact test ; fig6 a ). moreover , it has been shown that the r4 polypeptide is expressed on the surface of s . pneumoniae , i . e . it is in a position to be targeted by protective antibodies . this is evidenced in fig6 b by the ability of sera from r4 - gst immunized animals to stain the d39 surface by indirect immunofluorescence , according to a previously described flow cytometry protocol ( grifantini r ., et al ., nat . biotechnol ., 2002 ; 20 ( 9 ): 914 - 21 ). this example demonstrates that spr1875 and its products , with special reference to r4 , are suitable candidates for vaccines against s . pneumoniae and other gram positive bacteria . it is of particular interest , in this context , that spr1875 is present in all of the pneumococcal strains whose genome has been sequenced . moreover , as mentioned above , spr1875 is conserved in streptococcus sanguinis , streptococcus thermophiles , streptococcus pyogenes , streptococcus gordonii , streptococcus agalactiae and streptococcus suis . therefore spr1875 ( and homologous genes and gene products present in streptococci different from s . pneumoniae ) could be used in the formulation of vaccines directed against the said and , possibly , additional bacterial pathogens . the data clearly established that the spr1370 , spr1120 and the spr1875 , encode for products that are required for in vivo growth of streptococcus pneumoniae and for its ability to cause disease . therefore these genes and their products are novel and important targets for the prevention or the therapy of pneumococcal diseases . since at least portions of spr1120 and spr1875 are also present in other bacteria , these antigens may , in addition , be useful in the control of infections caused by bacteria different from pneumococci . a pneumococcal strain devoid of the 1370 gene was almost completely unable to replicate in vivo . this mutant did not cause any lethality and no bacteria were detected at any time point in the blood or the organs of infected mice when using inocula lower than 2 × 10 8 , i . e . at an extremely high dose . these striking results indicate that most likely the 1370 gene encodes of an important virulence factor , enabling s . pneumoniae to resist to antibacterial host defenses . alternatively the 1370 gene product may be required for the synthesis of an essential nutritional factor , which is available in vitro cultures but not in vivo . similar considerations also apply to the products of the other discovered genes ( spr1875 , spr1120 ) that were shown here to play essential or important roles in s . pneumoniae virulence . for example , the spr1875 - encoded polypeptide r4 was capable of markedly protecting , after immunization , experimental animals against infection by s . pneumoniae . this underscores the utility of the genes and gene products described here , e . g . in the form of vaccines , for the control of infections by pathogenic bacteria expressing said genes , including s . pneumoniae .
antigenic protein fragments of streptococcus pneumoniae to be used for the preparation of a medicament for the prevention and the treatment of bacterial infections and a method for the detection thereof , and related compositions using said epitopes , are disclosed .