Comprehensive evaluation and analysis of the salinity stress response mechanisms based on transcriptome and metabolome of Staphylococcus aureus.

Ying Feng,Rixin Wang,Xiurong Su,Ziyan Wang,Jun Zhou,Jingfeng Fan,Chenyang Lu,Dizhou Gu

doi:10.1007/s00203-021-02624-9

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus possesses an extraordinary ability to deal with a wide range of osmotic pressure. This study performed transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses on the potential mechanism of gradient salinity stress adaptation in S. aureus ZS01. The results revealed that CPS biosynthetic protein genes were candidate target genes for directly regulating the phenotypic changes of biofilm. Inositol phosphate metabolism was downregulated to reduce the conversion of functional molecules. The gluconeogenesis pathway and histidine synthesis were downregulated to reduce the production of endogenous glucose. The pyruvate metabolism pathway was upregulated to promote the accumulation of succinate. TCA cycle metabolism pathway was downregulated to reduce unnecessary energy loss. L-Proline was accumulated to regulate osmotic pressure. Therefore, these self-protection mechanisms can protect cells from hypertonic environments and help them focus on survival. In addition, we identified ten hub genes. The findings will aid in the prevention and treatment strategies of S. aureus infections.

Highlights

Staphylococcus aureus is an important opportunistic pathogen, which is highly resistant to osmotic stress (Schuster et al, 2016)
The morphology of S. aureus ZS01 was spherical, the surface of cell was smooth without damage or wrinkles, and the size was relatively neat (Fig. 1A)
It can be seen that the morphological changes of S. aureus ZS01 in the 20% NaCl treatment group are more obvious than in the 10% NaCl treatment group

Summary

Introduction

Staphylococcus aureus is an important opportunistic pathogen, which is highly resistant to osmotic stress (Schuster et al, 2016). S. aureus strains can generate a large scale of extracellular toxic proteins while growing or occurring in food, resulting in the outbreaks of staphylococcal food poisoning (SFP) in humans and animals (Alibayov et al, 2014). S. aureus can adapt and survive in harsh environments, such as drought, cold, and salinity stress (Argudín et al, 2010; Sergelidis et al, 2015). It has a strong tolerance for many common bacteriostatic methods, and SFP accounts for a high proportion of bacterial food poisoning (Fischer et al, 2009). Research on S. aureus has become an important research area in the field of food safety (Xu et al, 2019)

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion