Project description:The precise mechanism and effects of antibiotics in host gene expression and immunomodulation in MRSA infection is unknown. Using a well characterized Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolate USA300 in a murine model of infection, we determined that linezolid and vancomycin induced differential production of bacterial toxins and host cytokines, differences in host gene expression, and differences in immunomodulators during MRSA bloodstream infection. A total of 35 A/J mice, categorized into seven groups (no infection; no infection with linezolid; no infection with vancomycin; 2 hour post-infection (hpi) S. aureus; 24 hpi S. aureus; 24 hpi S. aureus with linezolid; and 24 hpi S. aureus with vancomycin), were used in this study. Mice were injected with USA300 (6 x 106 CFU/g via i.p. route), then intravenously treated with linezolid (25 mg/kg) or vancomycin (25 mg/kg) at 2 hpi. Control and S. aureus infected mice were euthanized at each time point (2 h or 24h) following injection. Whole blood RNA was used for microarray; three cytokines and two S. aureus toxins [PantonValentine Leukocidin (PVL) and alpha hemolysin] were quantified in mouse serum by ELISA. S. aureus CFUs were significantly reduced in blood and kidney after linezolid or vancomycin treatment in S. aureus-infected mice. In vivo IL-1M-NM-2 in mouse serum was significantly reduced in both linezolid (p=0.001) and vancomycin (p=0.006) treated mice compared to untreated ones. IL-6 was significantly reduced only in linezolid treated (p<0.001) but not in vancomycin treated mice. However, another proinflammatory cytokine, TNF-M-NM-1, did not exhibit altered levels in either linezolid or vancomycin treated mice (p=0.3 and p=0.51 respectively). In vivo level of bacterial toxin, Panton-Valentine leukocidin, in mouse serum was significantly reduced only in linezolid treated mice (p=0.02) but not in vancomycin treated mice. There was no significant effect of either treatment in in vivo level of alpha hemolysin production. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering using the gene expression data from 35 microarrays revealed distinct clustering based on infection status and treatment group. Study of the antibiotic-specific difference in gene expression identified the number of genes uniquely expressed in response to S. aureus infection, infection with linezolid treatment, and infection with vancomycin treatment. Pathway associations study for the differentially expressed genes in each comparison group (Control vs. 24 h S. aureus infection, 24 h S. aureus infection vs. 24 h S. aureus linezolid, and 24 h S. aureus infection vs. 24 h S. aureus vancomycin) in mice using Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) identified toll-like receptor signaling pathway to be common to every comparison groups studied. Glycerolipid metabolism pathway was uniquely associated only with linezolid treatment comparison group. The findings of this study provide the evidence that protein synthesis inhibitor like linezolid does a better job in treating MRSA sepsis compared to cell wall acting antibiotics like vancomycin. To identify differences in host gene expression in a murine sepsis model treated with a) linezolid and b) vancomycin, we used whole blood gene expression (RNA) signatures from A/J inbred mice infected with USA 300 MRSA to evaluate differences in host gene expression among mice treated with linezolid and vancomycin. We used 5 RNA samples from MRSA-infected, linezolid- or vancomycin-treated mice. A total of 7 experimental groups have been employed: 1) Uninfected control group: (negative controls). 2) Uninfected, linezolid-treated group: Uninfected, linezolid-treated mice. 3) Uninfected vancomycin-treated group: Uninfected, vancomycin-treated mice. 4) Infected control group (positive control 2 h) MRSA-infected, untreated mice. 5) Infected control group (positive control 24 h): MRSA-infected, untreated mice. 6) Infected linezolid group: MRSA-infected, linezolid-treated mice. 7) Infected vancomycin group: MRSA-infected, vancomycin-treated mice.
Project description:Purpose: Staphylococcus aureus is a highly successful human pathogen responsible for wide range of infections. In this study, we provide insights into the virulence, pathogenicity, and antimicrobial resistance determinants of methicillin susceptible and methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA; MRSA) recovered from non-healthcare environments. Experiment design: Three environmental MSSA and three environmental MRSA were selected for proteomic profiling using iTRAQ MS/MS. Gene Ontology (GO) Annotation and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) Pathway Annotation were applied to interpret the functions of the proteins detected. Results: 792 proteins were identified in MSSA and MRSA. Comparative analysis of MRSA and MSSA revealed that 8 of out 792 proteins were up-regulated and 156 down-regulated. Differentially abundant proteins were predominantly involved in catalytic and binding activity. Among 164 proteins that had differences in abundance, 29 proteins were involved in pathogenesis, antimicrobial activities,stress response, mismatch repair and cell wall synthesis. Twenty-two proteins associated with pathogenicity, including spa, sbi, clfA and dlt were up-regulated in MRSA. Moreover, the up-regulated pathogenic protein entC2 in MSSA was determined to be a super antigen potentially capable of triggering toxic shock syndrome in the host. Conclusions: Enhanced pathogenicity, antimicrobial activity and stress response were observed in MRSA compared to MSSA.
Project description:Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a gram-positive bacterium that causes a wide range of diseases. Terpinen-4-ol is a monoterpene component contained in most plant essential oils with good antibacterial activity. In this study, terpinen-4-ol effectively inhibited 13 strains of S. aureus, and effectively inhibited the biofilm of MRSA. Metabolomics and transcriptomics were used to elucidate changes in MRSA cells exposed to terpinen-4-ol. Terpinen-4-ol significantly changed (greater than a 2- or less than a 2-fold change) the expression of 304 genes and the level of 847 metabolites (greater than a 1.5- or less than a 0.67-fold change) in MRSA. The levels of genes and metabolites related to the valine, leucine and isoleucine biosynthesis metabolism pathway, the purine and pyrimidine metabolism pathway, energy metabolism and β-lactam resistance were dramatically changed in biofilms exposed to terpinen-4-ol. To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first to report the metabolite and expression profiles of MRSA exposed to terpinen-4-ol.
Project description:Previous studies have documented the diversity of genetic background of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) strains associated with healthcare (HA-MRSA), community (CA-MRSA) and livestock (LA-MRSA). The accessory and core-variable genome content of those strains remain largely unknown. To compare the composition of accessory and core-variable genome of Belgian MRSA strains according to host, population setting and genetic background, representative strains of HA- (n=21), CA- (n = 13) and ST398 LA-MRSA (n = 18) were characterized by a DNA-microarray (StaphVar Array) composed of oligonucleotide probes targeting ~400 resistance, adhesion and virulence associated genes.ST398 strains displayed very homogenous hybridization profiles (>94% gene content homology) irrespective of their host origin. This “ST398-specific” genomic profile was not distantly demarked from those of certain human-associated lineages but lacked several virulence- and colonization-associated genes harbored by strains of human origin, such as genes encoding proteases, haemolysins or adhesins. No enterotoxin gene was found among ST398 strains. In conclusion, our findings are consistent with a non-human origin of this ST398 lineage but suggest that it might have the potential to adapt further to the human host.
Project description:The success of community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) as pathogens is due to a combination of antibiotic resistance with high virulence. However, evolution of the exceptional virulence potential of CA-MRSA is not understood. Our previous study indicated that differential gene expression contributes substantially to this process. Thus, we here investigated the role of the pivotal virulence gene regulatory system agr in the most prevalent CA-MRSA strain USA300. Using a mouse subcutaneous infection model, we show that agr is essential for the development of CA-MRSA skin infections, the most frequent manifestation of disease caused by CA-MRSA. Furthermore, genome-wide analysis of gene expression revealed significant differences in agr-dependent virulence gene regulation between CA-MRSA, HA-MRSA, and laboratory strains. Our findings demonstrate that agr functionality is critical for CA-MRSA disease and indicate that an adaptation of the agr regulon to optimize expression of a broad set of virulence determinants may have contributed to the evolution of exceptionally pronounced virulence of CA-MRSA strains. Keywords: wild type vs mutant
Project description:Staphylococcus aureus can cause a broad spectrum of diseases that vary widely in clinical presentation and disease severity[121]. Methicillin-Resistant S. aureus (MRSA) strains first described in the 1960’s[122] were hospital acquired (HA MRSA), however in the 1990’s, community-associated MRSA strains (CA MRSA) were identified and are considered to be more virulent[16]. Therapeutics and management of MRSA focuses on novel antibacterials and vaccines targeting virulence factors. To date no clinical trials for vaccines have succeeded[123] due to the poor understanding of the pathogenic mechanisms exhibited by S.aureus.We investigated the differential gene expression of four clinical MRSA strains in vitro, belonging to HA and CA MRSA, at the stationary and exponential growth phases, using RNA-seq on the Ion torrent next generation sequencing platform. This study reveals the high diversity of virulence trait expression among MRSA strains within strains as well as between different growth phases, and also suggests potential factors other than PVL that contributes to enhanced virulence in CA MRSA