Project description:The purpose of this study was to compare the global, growth phase-dependent transcriptional profiles of two isolates of Staphylococcus aureus. One isolate is a prototypic laboratory strain named RN6390, and has been used frequently as a model organism for study of staphylococcal physiology and virulence. However, recent studies indicate that RN6390 is not, in general, genotypically or phenotypically representative of clinical isolates of Staphyloccos aureus. Therefore, there is no current comprehensive picture of gene expression patterns in a virulent, clinical isolate of Staphyloccous aureus. For these reasons, we compare the transcriptional profile of RN6390 to that of a virulent clinical isolate, UAMS-1. Also included in this study is profiling of two UAMS-1 regulatory mutants, UAMS-155, and UAMS-929. These strains possess mutations in the accessory gene regulator (agr) and staphylococcal accessory regulator (sarA) genes, respectively. These two genes are well described global regulatory molecules that are reported to play important roles in controlling virulence factor production and biofilm formation in Staphylococcus aureus. However, most study of these two molecules has been limited to laboratory strains such as RN6390. For these reasons, this study also includes transcriptional profiling of UAMS agr and sarA mutants. Keywords: Comparative, growth phase-dependent transcriptional profiling of bacterial strains and isogenic regulatory mutants
Project description:To determine if significant genomic changes are associated with the development of vancomycin intermediate Staphylococcus aureus, genomic DNA microarrays were performed to compare the initial vancomycin susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (VSSA) and a related vancomycin intermediate Staphylococcus aureus (VISA) isolate from five unique patients (five isolate pairs). Keywords: comparative genomic hybridization
Project description:Young adult fer-15;fem-1 Caenorhabditis elegans were infected with Staphylococcus aureus for 8 h to determine the transcriptional host response to Staphylococcus aureus. Analysis of differential gene expression in C. elegans young adults exposed to two different bacteria: E. coli strain OP50 (control), wild-type Staphylococcus aureus RN6390. Samples were analyzed at 8 hours after exposure to the different bacteria. These studies identified C. elegans genes induced by pathogen infection. Keywords: response to pathogen infection, innate immunity, host-pathogen interactions
Project description:Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections result in more than 200,000 hospitalizations and 10,000 deaths in the United States each year and remain an important medical challenge. To better understand the transcriptome of Staphylococcus aureus USA300 NRS384, a community-acquired MRSA strain, we have conducted an RNA-Seq experiment on WT samples.