Project description:The release of cells from S. epidermidis biofilms formed on medical devices has been associated with the onset of bloodstream infections, resulting in increased morbidity and mortality rates. This has to do, in part, with the difficulty to accurately diagnose S. epidermidis bloodstream infections. S. epidermidis is a ubiquitous commensal of human skin and mucosa and, thus, a positive blood culture does not always represent an infection, possibly being the result of contamination during blood collection. As such, there is a high demand to find markers that can help clinicians to distinguish infection (clinical isolates) from contamination (commensal strains). With that in mind, several studies comparing phenotypic or genetic characteristics of clinical and commensal isolates have been performed over the years. However, because S. epidermidis virulence factors seem to be the same that confer its fitness as a commensal, we hypothesized that the ability of S. epidermidis strains to adapt to the host environment may not depend on a specific phenotypic and/or genetic makeup, but rather on the regulation of gene transcription. Thus, using RNA-Sequencing (RNA-seq), we characterized the transcriptome of commensal and clinical isolates in the context of infection to try to uncover differences and, thus, identify markers that could be used for the diagnostics. Several markers with the potential to discriminate between both groups were highlighted. Nevertheless, when the results obtained were confirmed in a wider collection of clinical and commensal isolates the discriminatory power of the genes initially identified was lost. Although we cannot rule out that the characterization of a larger collection of isolates would identify potential candidates, our transcriptomic data was not able to confirm our initial hypothesis, evidencing S. epidermidis opportunistic nature.
Project description:Proteomic analysis of a commensal Staphylococcus epidermidis strain in different pH conditions for describing the molecular players involved in the skin-to-blood adaptation of the bacterium.
Project description:Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis, two Gram-positive bacteria commonly found in the human skin microbiota, form biofilms that contribute to skin dysbiosis and play a key role in conditions like acne and atopic dermatitis. The Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) is a human peptide involved in skin inflammation. We previously showed that CGRP enhances the virulence of S. epidermidis MFP04 and that the DnaK chaperone protein is significantly overexpressed in the secretome of CGRP-activated virulent S. epidermidis. In this study, we explored a potential new role of S. epidermidis DnaK in biofilm formation in both S. aureus and S. epidermidis. We showed that recombinant S. epidermidis DnaK differentially affects biofilm formation, whether in two skin commensal staphylococcal strains (S. aureus MFP03 and S. epidermidis MFP04) or in a clinical S. aureus strain (CIP 107093). In the clinical strain S. aureus CIP 107093, biofilm formation was most strongly inhibited. This inhibition involves both the Substrate-Binding Domain and the Nucleotide-Binding Domain of DnaK. Proteomic analysis revealed that DnaK alters the S. aureus biofilm proteome, stabilizing proteins involved in protein degradation like ClpP and ETA, while downregulating key regulatory proteins involved in biofilm development such as SaeS and WalK. These results indicate that S. epidermidis DnaK may contribute to the regulation of S. aureus biofilm formation, suggesting a cross-species regulatory role of DnaK within the skin microbiota.
Project description:Skin commensal bacteria (Staphylococcus epidermidis) can help defend against skin infections, and they are increasingly being recognized for their role in benefiting skin health. This study aims to demonstrate the activities that Myristica fragrans Houtt. seed extracts, crude extract (CE) and essential oil (EO), have in terms of promoting the growth of the skin commensal bacterium S. epidermidis and providing metabolites under culture conditions to disrupt the biofilm formation of the common pathogen Staphylococcus aureus.
Project description:Skin serves as both barrier and interface between body and environment. Skin microbes are intermediaries evolved to respond, transduce, or act in response to changing environmental or physiological conditions. Here, we quantify genome-wide changes in gene expression levels for one abundant skin commensal, Staphylococcus epidermidis, in response to an internal physiological signal, glucose levels, and an external environmental signal, temperature. We find 85 of 2354 genes change up to ~34-fold in response to medically-relevant changes in glucose concentration (0 mM to 17 mM; adj P value ≤ 0.05). We observed carbon catabolite repression in response to a range of glucose spikes, as well as upregulation of genes involved in glucose utilization in response to persistent glucose. We observed 366 differentially expressed genes in response to a physiologically-relevant change in temperature (37°C to 45°C; adj P value ≤ 0.05) and an S. epidermidis heat-shock response that mostly resembles the heat-shock response of related staphylococcal species. DNA motif analysis also revealed CtsR and CIRCE operator sequences arranged in tandem upstream of dnaK and groESL operons. We further identified 38 glucose-responsive genes as candidate ON or OFF genes for use in controlling synthetic genetic systems. Such systems might be used to instrument the in-situ skin microbiome or help control microbes bioengineered to serve as embedded diagnostics, monitoring, or treatment platforms.
Project description:The custom-made S. epidermidis GeneChips(Shanghai Biochip Co., Ltd) included qualifiers representing open reading frame (ORF) sequences identified in the genomes of the S. epidermidis strain RP62A, as well as unique ORFs in S. epidermidis strain 12228. The GeneChips were composed of cDNA array containing PCR products of 2316 genes and oligonucleotide array containing 252 genes.Two-component regulatory systems (TCSs) play a pivotal role in bacterial adaptation, survival, and virulence by sensing changes in the external environment and modulating gene expression in response to a variety of stimuli.To investigate the regulatory role of LytSR, one of the TCSs identified in the genomes of S. epidermidis, we used the GeneChips to perform a transcriptional profile analysis of the wild strain and lytSR mutant.
Project description:To investigate whether skin bacteria might influence the expression of selected genes, we co-cultured human keratinocytes with S. epidermidis, an abundant commensal in human skin and performed RNA sequencing analysis.
Project description:The custom-made S. epidermidis GeneChips(Shanghai Biochip Co., Ltd) included qualifiers representing open reading frame (ORF) sequences identified in the genomes of the S. epidermidis strain RP62A, as well as unique ORFs in S. epidermidis strain 12228. The GeneChips were composed of cDNA array containing PCR products of 2316 genes and oligonucleotide array containing 252 genes.Two-component regulatory systems (TCSs) play a pivotal role in bacterial adaptation, survival, and virulence by sensing changes in the external environment and modulating gene expression in response to a variety of stimuli.To investigate the regulatory role of LytSR, one of the TCSs identified in the genomes of S. epidermidis, we used the GeneChips to perform a transcriptional profile analysis of the wild strain and lytSR mutant. Wild type untreated in triplicate is compared to lytSR mutant in triplicate for cDNA array and four replicates on the oligo array.
Project description:Denmark has an extraordinarily large and well-preserved collection of archaeological skin garments found in peat bogs, dated to approximately 920 BC - AD 775. These objects provide not only the possibility to study prehistoric skin costume and technologies, but also to investigate the animal species used for production of skin garments. Until recently, species identification of archaeological skin was mainly performed by light and scanning electron microscopy or analysis of ancient DNA. However, the efficacy of these methods can be limited due to the harsh, mostly acidic environment of peat bogs leading to morphological and molecular degradation within the samples. We compared species assignment results of twelve archaeological skin samples from Danish bogs using Mass Spectrometry (MS)-based peptide sequencing, against results obtained using light and scanning electron microscopy