Binding Strength of Gram-Positive Bacterial Adhesins

Abstract

Bacterial pathogens are equipped with specialized surface-exposed proteins that bind strongly to ligands on host tissues and biomaterials. These adhesins play critical roles during infection, especially during the early step of adhesion where the cells are exposed to physical stress. Recent single-molecule experiments have shown that staphylococci interact with their ligands through a wide diversity of mechanosensitive molecular mechanisms. Adhesin-ligand interactions are activated by tensile force and can be ten times stronger than classical non-covalent biological bonds. Overall these studies demonstrate that Gram-positive adhesins feature unusual stress-dependent molecular interactions, which play essential roles during bacterial colonization and dissemination. With an increasing prevalence of multidrug resistant infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis, chemotherapeutic targeting of adhesins offers an innovative alternative to antibiotics.

Coaggregation properties of trimeric autotransporter adhesins

“…It is interesting to note that on glass, agitation promoted biofilm formation by TAAs except EibA, which suggests that shear forces promote adhesion mediated by TAAs on this surface. Similar catch bond‐type behavior has been observed for several bacterial adhesins before (Dufrêne & Viljoen, 2020; Hospenthal & Waksman, 2019) and also the TAA AtaA from Acinetobacter sp. Tol 5 mediates stronger binding to glass surfaces and more aggregation under moderate shear stress (Furuichi, Iwasaki, & Hori, 2018).…”

Lactobacillus Cell Surface Proteins Involved in Interaction with Mucus and Extracellular Matrix Components

“…The extracellular matrix (ECM) is an important constituent of animal tissues, whose composition and structure differs from one tissue to another. Being ubiquitously and profusely distributed, some of its components, such as collagen and fibronectin, can be adhesion targets for bacterial pathogens as well as for commensal bacteria [32,33]. Indeed, bacteria express several cell surface proteins that specifically interact with ECM, among which the most studied are the proteins called MSCRAMM (microbial surface components recognizing adhesive matrix molecules).…”

Characterization of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus through genomics approach

“…It was reported that the co-existence of icaA and icaD increase N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase activity and slime production (Arciola et al 2001 , 2006 ). Additionally, S. aureus possesses microbial surface components recognizing adhesive matrix molecules (MSCRAMMs), such as elastin ( ebps ), laminin ( eno ), collagen ( cna ), fibronectin A and B ( fnbA and fnbB ), fibrinogen ( fib ), bone sialoprotein ( bbp ) and clumping factors A and B ( clfA and clfB ) and these molecules are present on the bacterial surface to enable adherence to host tissues, thus playing a pivotal role in pathogenesis (Lindsay et al 2006 ; Foster et al 2014 ; Ghasemian et al 2015 ; Dufrêne and Viljoen 2020 ).…”