Human-pathogenic bacteria that are able to cause persistent infections must have developed mechanisms to resist the immune defense system. Lysozyme, a cell wall-lytic enzyme, is one of the first defense compounds induced in serum and tissues after the onset of infection. Recently, we showed that Staphylococcus aureus is resistant to lysozyme by O acetylating its peptidoglycan (PG) by O-acetyltr...

A bifunctional aldolase/kinase enzyme named DLF has been constructed by gene fusion through overlap extension. This fusion enzyme consists of monomeric fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase (FBPA) from Staphylococcus carnosus and the homodimeric dihydroxyacetone kinase (DHAK) from Citrobacter freundii CECT 4626 with an intervening linker of five amino acid residues. The fusion protein was expresse...

Efficient enrichment of staphylococcal cells displaying specific heterologous affinity ligands on their cell surfaces was demonstrated by using fluorescence-activated cell sorting. Using bacterial surface display of peptide or protein libraries for the purpose of combinatorial protein engineering has previously been investigated by using gram-negative bacteria. Here, the potential for using a g...

The risks of contracting staphylococci food poisoning by the consumption of improperly manufactured salami and the possibility of this food being reservoirs for antibiotic resistance were evaluated. Nineteen coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) strains were found in commercial and artisanal salami. The species in commercial salami were S. saprophyticus, S. sciuri, S. xylosus, and S. carnosus....

The heterologous surface expression of the cholera toxin B subunit (CTB) from Vibro cholerae in two staphylococcal species, Staphylococcus xylosus and Staphylococcus carnosus, has been investigated. The gene encoding native CTB (103 amino acids) was introduced into gene constructs encoding chimeric receptors designed to be translocated and anchored on the outer cell surface of the staphylococci...

Staphylococcus aureus is an important pathogen that forms biofilms on the surfaces of medical implants. Biofilm formation by S. aureus is associated with the production of poly N-acetylglucosamine (PNAG), also referred to as polysaccharide intercellular adhesin (PIA), which mediates bacterial adhesion, leading to the accumulation of bacteria on solid surfaces. This study shows that the ability ...

Intracellular Staphylococcus aureus has been implicated in the establishment of chronic infections. It is therefore imperative to understand by what means S. aureus is able to survive within cells. Here we use two expression systems with a fluorescent readout to assay alpha-toxin expression and function within phagolysosomes of infected upper-airway epithelial cells: avirulent Staphylococcus ca...

Unspecific adhesion of bacteria is usually the first step in the formation of biofilms on abiotic surfaces, yet it is unclear up to now which forces are governing this process. Alongside long-ranged van der Waals and electrostatic forces, short-ranged hydrophobic interaction plays an important role. To characterize the forces involved during approach and retraction of an individual bacterium to...

While numerous reports indicate that adult bone marrow-derived cells can contribute to nonhematopoietic tissues in vivo in adult mice, the generally low frequency of these events has made it difficult to study the molecular and cellular pathways involved. Here, we show a 1000-fold range in the frequency with which diverse skeletal muscles incorporate adult bone marrow-derived cells in adult mic...