Toxicogenomic Response of Staphylococcus aureus to Triclosan

Abstract

For the first time a genome‐wide transcriptional analysis was performed to elucidate the cellular response of S. aureus to triclosan. Our results indicate that triclosan effects are widespread on the metabolism, affecting many vital cellular processes. Triclosan downregulated the transcription of genes involved in virulence factor and energy metabolism such as amino acid, carbohydrate, lipid transport and metabolism, while multidrug resistance genes, coenzyme transport and metabolism and transcription genes were upregulated. Furthermore, triclosan downregulated transcription of genes encoding major lipid metabolism enzymes such as 3‐hydroxyacyl‐CoA dehydrogenase, acetyl‐CoA acetyltransferase, acetyl‐CoA synthetase, and acetyl‐CoA carboxylase, which all play essential roles in S. aureus lipid metabolism. Interestingly, the expression of enoyl‐ACP reductase gene, fabI, was not changed after exposure of S. aureus with 0.05μM triclosan at 10 and 60min in our study. This work also implies that triclosan may kill S. aureus, by interfering with the ability to form cell wall membrane the same as penicillin. Another important implication of our result is that S. aureus may generate resistance factors under triclosan stress.