Title

The Role Of Human Innate Immune Factors In Nasal Colonization By Staphylococcus Aureus

Keywords

Gene polymorphism; Human nasal colonization; Innate immunity; Staphylococcus aureus

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus colonization of the human nares predisposes to sometimes severe auto-infection. To investigate whether genetic polymorphism affects the S. aureus carriage status, sequence variation in α-defensin and β-defensin, and mannose-binding lectin (MBL) genes were determined for a group of volunteers (n = 109) with known S. aureus nasal carriage status. DEFA1/3 expression was measured in a subset of the volunteers (n = 32). None of the single nucleotide polymorphisms studied could clearly distinguish the (non) carriage groups. S. aureus carriers differed from non-carriers in baseline level of HNP1-3 peptide production (median: 218 versus 89 μg/ml, P = 0.016). No association between HNP1-3 levels and the individual sequence polymorphisms was documented. The combined copy numbers of DEFA1/A3 genes ranged from 5 to 23 per diploid genome. A linear correlation between combined copy numbers and HNP1-3 peptide concentrations in nasal secretions of non-carriers was noted (r2 = 0.8991). DEFA3 gene was absent in 25% of the individuals. MBL haplotype A was overrepresented in persistent S. aureus carriers (87% vs. 67%; P = 0.038). In conclusion, defensin gene polymorphism, both in sequence and in gene copy numbers, does not seem to be involved in S. aureus carriage predisposition. However, MBL haplotypes do so significantly. Baseline HNP1-3 production is more the consequence of S. aureus colonization than a reason for the (non) carrier status. © 2007 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Publication Date

10-1-2007

Publication Title

Microbes and Infection

Volume

9

Issue

12-13

Number of Pages

1471-1477

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micinf.2007.08.003

Socpus ID

35548968439 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/35548968439

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