Growth promotion of the opportunistic human pathogen, Staphylococcus lugdunensis , by heme, hemoglobin, and coculture with Staphylococcus aureus

Abstract

Staphylococcus lugdunensis is both a commensal of humans and an opportunistic pathogen. Little is currently known about the molecular mechanisms underpinning the virulence of this bacterium. Here, we demonstrate that in contrast to S. aureus,S. lugdunensis makes neither staphyloferrin A (SA) nor staphyloferrin B (SB) in response to iron deprivation, owing to the absence of the SB gene cluster, and a large deletion in the SA biosynthetic gene cluster. As a result, the species grows poorly in serum-containing media, and this defect was complemented by introduction of the S. aureusSA gene cluster into S. lugdunensis. S. lugdunensis expresses the HtsABC and SirABC transporters for SA and SB, respectively; the latter gene set is found within the isd (heme acquisition) gene cluster. An isd deletion strain was significantly debilitated for iron acquisition from both heme and hemoglobin, and was also incapable of utilizing ferric-SB as an iron source, while an hts mutant could not grow on ferric-SA as an iron source. In iron-restricted coculture experiments, S. aureus significantly enhanced the growth of S. lugdunensis, in a manner dependent on staphyloferrin production by S. aureus, and the expression of the cognate transporters by S. lugdunensis.

Carriage niches and molecular epidemiology of Staphylococcus lugdunensis and methicillin-resistant S. lugdunensis among patients undergoing long-term renal replacement therapy

“…Swabs specimens were collected from patients who were treated in two nephrology centers within two regional hospitals (A and B) in Hong Kong during the period from November 2013 to Feburary 2014. The criteria for inclusions were: (1) adults aged ≥18 years, (2) under any form of long-term renal replacement therapy including continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis, intermittent peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis. Patients who were not capable of giving consent or deemed to be medically unstable (e.g.…”

The Metallophore Staphylopine Enables Staphylococcus aureus To Compete with the Host for Zinc and Overcome Nutritional Immunity

“…This inference is supported by the observation that importers that are not homologous to the CntABCDF permease are associated with StP loci in other bacteria. Microbes are known to steal siderophores produced by other organisms; thus, the production of StP variants may serve as a mechanism to prevent their use by other microorganisms ( 32 , 34 , 60 – 62 ). It is also tempting to speculate that this diversity may serve as a mechanism to prevent the host from binding the zincophore produced by a pathogen, akin to the production of modified siderophores that evade binding by the host immune effector lipocalin ( 63 – 65 ).…”

Staphylococcus epidermidis is largely dependent on iron availability to form biofilms

“…Regarding staphylococci, relevant research on this topic has been published. However, not only these studies have mostly been performed on planktonic growth, but also a strong focus on S. aureus is noticeable (Beasley et al, 2009;Brozyna et al, 2014;Cornelis and Dingemans, 2013;Dale et al, 2004). As a major cause of bloodstream infections (Widerström et al, 2012), S. epidermidis is thought to have efficient mechanisms to overcome severe iron restriction found in an environment like blood.…”