TY - JOUR
T1 - Sugar-responsive gene expression and the agr system are required for colony spreading in Staphylococcus aureus
AU - Ueda, Tomofumi
AU - Kaito, Chikara
AU - Omae, Yosuke
AU - Sekimizu, Kazuhisa
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank R.P. Novick, K. Hiramatsu, and T. Ito for the S. aureus strains. This work was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research. This study was supported in part by the Program for Promotion of Fundamental Studies in Health Sciences of the National Institute of Biomedical Innovation (NIBIO) and Genome Pharmaceuticals Institute.
PY - 2011/9
Y1 - 2011/9
N2 - Staphylococcus aureus spreads on soft agar surfaces, which is called "colony spreading" Here, we report that the colony spreading in S. aureus was promoted by the addition of glucose to soft agar plates. Disruption of ccpA and hprK, which are involved in catabolite repression, decreased the colony spreading ability promoted by glucose. Deletion of the agr locus, a virulence regulatory element whose expression is activated by glucose in a ccpA-dependent manner, abolished the colony spreading promoted by glucose. Disruption of clpP and arlRS, which contributes to agr expression, also decreased glucose-promoted colony spreading. These findings suggest that S. aureus colony spreading requires the expression of agr, which is positively regulated by environmental carbon sources, and that virulence gene expression and colony spreading induced by agr are simultaneously activated in the S. aureus infectious process.
AB - Staphylococcus aureus spreads on soft agar surfaces, which is called "colony spreading" Here, we report that the colony spreading in S. aureus was promoted by the addition of glucose to soft agar plates. Disruption of ccpA and hprK, which are involved in catabolite repression, decreased the colony spreading ability promoted by glucose. Deletion of the agr locus, a virulence regulatory element whose expression is activated by glucose in a ccpA-dependent manner, abolished the colony spreading promoted by glucose. Disruption of clpP and arlRS, which contributes to agr expression, also decreased glucose-promoted colony spreading. These findings suggest that S. aureus colony spreading requires the expression of agr, which is positively regulated by environmental carbon sources, and that virulence gene expression and colony spreading induced by agr are simultaneously activated in the S. aureus infectious process.
KW - Agr
KW - Catabolite repression
KW - Colony spreading
KW - Staphylococcus aureus
KW - Virulence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79959352015&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=79959352015&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.micpath.2011.04.003
DO - 10.1016/j.micpath.2011.04.003
M3 - Article
C2 - 21514374
AN - SCOPUS:79959352015
SN - 0882-4010
VL - 51
SP - 178
EP - 185
JO - Microbial Pathogenesis
JF - Microbial Pathogenesis
IS - 3
ER -
