Impact of cadmium stress on the transcriptome of Streptococcus pneumoniae

This study reports the impact of cadmium toxicity on the transcriptome of S. pneumoniae. The most transcriptionally-responsive pathways were found to be carbon source metabolism, fatty acid biosynthesis, cellular metal homeostasis and competence. This data provides a global overview of how the pneumococcus responds to metal ion intoxication, and subsequently, how it maintains viability during this stress. Purified RNA from four biological replicates of untreated S. pneumoniae D39 and S. pneumoniae D39 treated with 30 µM cadmium were pooled for RNA sequencing. Data was used to compare gene expression in the untreated cells to cadmium-treated cells.