In FY 2019, we continued our investigation of virulence factors that contribute to Staphylococcus aureus pathogenesis and immune evasion. The focus is on understanding which factors define the virulence potential of highly virulent MSSA and MRSA clones, in particular of community-associated MRSA. Much of our work is currently still focussed on phenol-soluble modulins (PSMs), toxins that we discovered in 2007. We collaborate with a series of researchers in different fields, analyzing the contribution of PSMs to different phenotypes. Current efforts in our own lab are aimed at understanding the mechanism of the PSM exporter and the involvement of PSMs and quorum-sensing in staphylococcal sepsis. New directions of research in the past FY included investigation of interactions of staphylococci with other bacteria, for example with bacilli during intestinal colonization.

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18
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2019
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Zheng, Yue; He, Lei; Asiamah, Titus K et al. (2018) Colonization of medical devices by staphylococci. Environ Microbiol 20:3141-3153
He, Lei; Zheng, Hong-Xiang; Wang, Yanan et al. (2018) Detection and analysis of methicillin-resistant human-adapted sequence type 398 allows insight into community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus evolution. Genome Med 10:5
Fisher, Emilie L; Otto, Michael; Cheung, Gordon Y C (2018) Basis of Virulence in Enterotoxin-Mediated Staphylococcal Food Poisoning. Front Microbiol 9:436
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Schlatterer, Katja; Beck, Christian; Hanzelmann, Dennis et al. (2018) The Mechanism behind Bacterial Lipoprotein Release: Phenol-Soluble Modulins Mediate Toll-Like Receptor 2 Activation via Extracellular Vesicle Release from Staphylococcus aureus. MBio 9:
Nakatsuji, Teruaki; Chen, Tiffany H; Butcher, Anna M et al. (2018) A commensal strain of Staphylococcus epidermidis protects against skin neoplasia. Sci Adv 4:eaao4502
Zheng, Yue; Joo, Hwang-Soo; Nair, Vinod et al. (2018) Do amyloid structures formed by Staphylococcus aureus phenol-soluble modulins have a biological function? Int J Med Microbiol 308:675-682
Cheung, Gordon Y C; Fisher, Emilie L; McCausland, Joshua W et al. (2018) Antimicrobial Peptide Resistance Mechanism Contributes to Staphylococcus aureus Infection. J Infect Dis 217:1153-1159
Blake, Kimbria J; Baral, Pankaj; Voisin, Tiphaine et al. (2018) Staphylococcus aureus produces pain through pore-forming toxins and neuronal TRPV1 that is silenced by QX-314. Nat Commun 9:37
Piewngam, Pipat; Zheng, Yue; Nguyen, Thuan H et al. (2018) Pathogen elimination by probiotic Bacillus via signalling interference. Nature 562:532-537

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