[SCAN] Metabolic adaptation of Staphylococcus aureus to antimicrobial nitrosative stress imposed by host innate immunity

Scan

Title: Metabolic adaptation of Staphylococcus aureus to antimicrobial nitrosative stress imposed by host innate immunity

Speaker: Sandra Carvalho

Affiliation: Ligia M. Saraiva Lab, Molecular Mechanisms of Pathogen Resistance, ITQB NOVA

Abstract:

"Metabolic adaptation of Staphylococcus aureus to antimicrobial nitrosative stress imposed by host innate immunity": Staphylococcus aureus is a major cause of life-threatening infections due to the widespread occurrence of strains that are resistant to antibiotics. The human nasopharynx is the primary colonization niche of S. aureus, where this bacterium binds to the nasopharyngeal mucus mucins. In this environment, S. aureus survives high concentrations of nitric oxide (NO.) and derived reactive nitrogen species (RNS), which cause deleterious nitrosylation of several cellular life support enzymes, including the respiratory electron transfer proteins. In contrast to other niches, these mucus mucins contain lower amounts of glucose, which is the preferable carbon source of S. aureus, but instead are rich in slow-metabolizing carbon sources such as galactose. Here, we have used deep-sequencing transcriptomic analysis (RNA-Seq) and 1H-NMR to uncover how S. aureus survives NO stress when grown on galactose and the impact on the virulence of this human pathogen.