Poh, S. E., Koh, W. L. C., Lim, S. Y. D., Wang, E. C. E., Yew, Y. W., Common, J. E. A., Oon, H. H., & Li, H. (2022). Expression of Staphylococcus aureus Virulence Factors in Atopic Dermatitis. JID Innovations, 2(4), 100130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xjidi.2022.100130
Abstract:
Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a skin inflammatory disease in which the opportunistic pathogen Staphylococcus
aureus is prevalent and abundant. S. aureus harbors several secreted virulence factors that have well-studied
functions in infection models, but it is unclear whether these extracellular microbial factors are relevant in
the context of AD. To address this question, we designed a culture-independent method to detect and quantify
S. aureus virulence factors expressed at the skin sites. We utilized RNase-H‒dependent multiplex PCR for
preamplification of reverse-transcribed RNA extracted from tape strips of patients with AD sampled at skin sites with differing severity and assessed the expression of a panel of S. aureus virulence factors using qPCR. We observed an increase in viable S. aureus abundance on sites with increased severity of disease, and many
virulence factors were expressed at the AD skin sites. Surprisingly, we did not observe any significant upregulation of the virulence factors at the lesional sites compared with those at the nonlesional control. Overall, we utilized a robust assay to directly detect and quantify viable S. aureus and its associated virulence factors at the site of AD skin lesions. This method can be extended to study the expression of skin microbial genes at the sites of various dermatological conditions.
License type:
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Funding Info:
This research / project is supported by the Ministry of Education - Academic Research Fund Tier 1 grant
Grant Reference no. : R-143-000-B79-114
This research / project is supported by the Ministry of Education - Academic Research Fund Tier 1 grant
Grant Reference no. : R-143-000-C16-114
This research / project is supported by the Singapore Ministry of Health’s / National Medical Research Council - Open Fund-Individual Research Grant (OFIRG)
Grant Reference no. : MOH-000612-00
This research / project is supported by the National Healthcare group (NHG) - Skin Innovation Grant
Grant Reference no. : SIG18005
This research / project is supported by the A*STAR - Industry Alignment Fund Pre-Positioning “Asian Skin Microbiome Program.”
Grant Reference no. : H18/01a0/016