Abstract
Staphylococcus aureus is a common cause of catheter-related blood stream infections (CRBSI). The bacterium has the ability to form multilayered biofilms on implanted material, which usually requires the removal of the implanted medical device. A first major step of this biofilm formation is the initial adhesion of the bacterium to the artificial surface. Here, we used single-cell force spectroscopy (SCFS) to study the initial adhesion of S. aureus to central venous catheters (CVCs). SCFS performed with S. aureus on the surfaces of naïve CVCs produced comparable maximum adhesion forces on three types of CVCs in the low nN range (~ 2–7 nN). These values were drastically reduced, when CVC surfaces were preincubated with human blood plasma or human serum albumin, and similar reductions were observed when S. aureus cells were probed with freshly explanted CVCs withdrawn from patients without CRBSI. These findings indicate that the initial adhesion capacity of S. aureus to CVC tubing is markedly reduced, once the CVC is inserted into the vein, and that the risk of contamination of the CVC tubing by S. aureus during the insertion process might be reduced by a preconditioning of the CVC surface with blood plasma or serum albumin.
Highlights
Staphylococcus aureus is a common cause of catheter-related blood stream infections (CRBSI)
To further elucidate these characteristics, we started our study with the determination of the surface topography and hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity of three central venous catheters (CVCs) types obtained from different manufacturers that are commonly used at the Saarland University Medical Hospital (Fig. 1 and Table 1)
human blood plasma (HBP)-pretreated surfaces of CVC types I, II and III displayed advancing water contact angles of 55 ± 4°, 39 ± 4° and 51 ± 5°, respectively. These findings suggest that a HBP preconditioning renders the surface of the CVC tubing from hydrophobic to hydrophilic, and that this change in wettability might contribute to the reduced maximum adhesion forces observed for S. aureus on the HBP-precoated CVC tubing
Summary
Staphylococcus aureus is a common cause of catheter-related blood stream infections (CRBSI). SCFS performed with S. aureus on the surfaces of naïve CVCs produced comparable maximum adhesion forces on three types of CVCs in the low nN range (~ 2–7 nN) These values were drastically reduced, when CVC surfaces were preincubated with human blood plasma or human serum albumin, and similar reductions were observed when S. aureus cells were probed with freshly explanted CVCs withdrawn from patients without CRBSI. A third way of CVC colonization by S. aureus originates from remote sources of local infection via the bloodstream (hematogenous spread) Under these conditions, S. aureus cells that are decorated by plasma factors are likely to get into contact with a CVC surface that is covered with plasma factors as well. In order to fill these gaps, we applied here a single-cell force spectroscopy (SCFS) approach[21] to determine the maximum adhesion forces and rupture lengths of viable, native and plasma-coated S. aureus cells to naïve and plasma coated PU-based CVCs
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