1. Small colony variants of Staphylococcus aureus reveal distinct protein profiles
- Author
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Christof von Eiff, Alexander Pirkl, Esther Mahabir, Georg Peters, Gunnar Sander, Karsten Becker, André Kriegeskorte, Simone König, and Richard A. Proctor
- Subjects
Proteomics ,Staphylococcus aureus ,Genotype ,Citric Acid Cycle ,Mutant ,Colony Count, Microbial ,Heme ,Biology ,medicine.disease_cause ,Polymerase Chain Reaction ,Biochemistry ,Mass Spectrometry ,Microbiology ,Bacterial Proteins ,medicine ,Molecular Biology ,Genetic Association Studies ,Chromatography ,Organisms, Genetically Modified ,Gene Expression Profiling ,Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial ,Staphylococcal Infections ,Phenotype ,Label-free quantification ,Cytoplasm ,Mutation ,Proteome ,Gentamicins ,Glycolysis ,Gene Deletion ,Genome, Bacterial - Abstract
Small-colony variants (SCVs) of Staphylococcus aureus represent a slow-growing subpopulation causing chronic and relapsing infections due to their physiological adaptation on an intracellular lifestyle. In this first proteomic study on physiological changes associated with a natural, clinically derived SCV, its proteomic profile was investigated in comparison to corresponding isogenic strains displaying normal (clinical wild-type strain, complemented hemB mutant and spontaneous revertant of the clinical SCV) and SCV phenotypes (hemB mutant and gentamicin-induced SCV). Applying an ultra-high resolution chromatography and high mass accuracy MS(E) -based label-free relative and absolute protein quantification approach, the whole cytoplasmic proteome of this strain sextet was investigated in a growth phase-controlled manner covering early-exponential, late-exponential and stationary phases. Of 1019 cytoplasmic proteins identified, 154 were found to be differently regulated between strains. All SCV phenotypes showed down-regulation of the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle-related proteins and of a protein cluster involved in purine/pyrimidine and folate metabolism. In contrast to hemB mutant and gentamicin-induced SCVs, the clinically derived SCVs showed no prominent up-regulation of glycolytic proteins. The spontaneous switch into the normal phenotype resulted in up-regulation of TCA cycle-related parts, while oxidative stress-related proteins were down-regulated. However, the natural revertant from the clinical SCV retained also dominant protein features of the clinical SCV phenotype. In conclusion, physiological changes between normal and SCV S. aureus phenotypes are more complex than reflected by defined electron transport chain-interrupting mutants and their complemented counterparts.
- Published
- 2011