Abstract
Some staphylococcal species are opportunistic pathogens of humans and/or animals with Staphylococcus epidermidis as one of the most important. It causes a broad spectrum of diseases in humans and animals. This species is able to form biofilms and has developed antibiotic resistance, which has motivated research on new antibacterial agents. Cell-wall hydrolases (CWHs) can constitute a potential alternative. Following a hijacking strategy, we inventoried the CWHs of S. epidermidis. The lytic potential of representative CWHs that could be turned against staphylococci was explored by turbidity assays which revealed that cell wall glycosidases were not efficient, while cell wall amidases and cell wall peptidases were able to lyse S. epidermidis. Sle1, which is encoded by chromosomal gene and composed of three anchoring LysM domains and a C-terminal CHAP (cysteine, histidine-dependent amidohydrolase/peptidase) domain, was one of the most active CWHs. The phylogeny of Sle1 revealed seven clusters mostly identified among staphylococci. Sle1 was able to lyse several staphylococcal species, including Staphylococcus aureus, both in planktonic and sessile forms, but not Micrococcus.
Highlights
Staphylococci are mainly associated with the skin, skin glands and mucous membranes of animals and humans [1,2]
The search in the UniProt database resulted in a list of 16 Cell-wall hydrolases (CWHs) identified in S. epidermidis RP62A (Figure 1)
We identified CWHs with one catalytic domain, namely i) one cell-wall amidase (CWA) corresponding to N-acetylmuramoyl-L-alanine amidases (NALAA-3), ii) four cell-wall glucosamidase (CWG) including two N-acetylglucosaminidases (GHF-73), and one lysozyme (GHF-25) and a transglycosylase (TG), and iii) eight cell-wall peptidases (CWPs) including seven Cysteine Histidine-dependent Amidohydrolases/Peptidases (CHAP) and one PM23
Summary
Staphylococci are mainly associated with the skin, skin glands and mucous membranes of animals and humans [1,2]. Some species are opportunistic pathogens of humans and/or animals with Staphylococcus aureus (CPS) and Staphylococcus epidermidis (CNS) as the most important ones. They cause a broad spectrum of diseases ranging from skin diseases, wound sepsis, mastitis, endocarditis, osteomyelitis, and lung infections in humans and animals [2,3]. Staphylococci were commonly isolated from HAI and represented 35.2% of all types of infections, 54.3% at surgical sites and 41.7% in blood stream infections. S. aureus was found in 12.1% of all types of infections and in 21.5% of surgical site infections, with 34.2% of strains resistant to methicillin.
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