An overview of moonlighting proteins in Staphylococcus aureus infection
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MINI-REVIEW
An overview of moonlighting proteins in Staphylococcus aureus infection Vijay Hemmadi1 · Malabika Biswas1 Received: 9 July 2020 / Revised: 29 September 2020 / Accepted: 1 October 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Staphylococcus aureus is responsible for numerous instances of superficial, toxin-mediated, and invasive infections. The emergence of methicillin-resistant (MRSA), as well as vancomycin-resistant (VRSA) strains of S. aureus, poses a massive threat to human health. The tenacity of S. aureus to acquire resistance against numerous antibiotics in a very short duration makes the effort towards developing new antibiotics almost futile. S. aureus owes its destructive pathogenicity to the plethora of virulent factors it produces among which a majority of them are moonlighting proteins. Moonlighting proteins are the multifunctional proteins in which a single protein, with different oligomeric conformations, perform multiple independent functions in different cell compartments. Peculiarly, proteins involved in key ancestral functions and metabolic pathways typically exhibit moonlighting functions. Pathogens mainly employ those proteins as virulent factors which exhibit high structural conservation towards their host counterparts. Consequentially, the host immune system counteracts these invading bacterial virulent factors with minimal protective action. Additionally, many moonlighting proteins also play multiple roles in various stages of pathogenicity while augmenting the virulence of the bacterium. This has necessitated elaborative studies to be conducted on moonlighting proteins of S. aureus that can serve as drug targets. This review is a small effort towards understanding the role of various moonlighting proteins in the pathogenicity of S. aureus. Keywords Moonlighting proteins · Staphylococcus aureus · Enolase · Pathogenicity
Introduction In 1880, Dr Alexander Ogston had constantly noticed the presence of Gram-positive spherical “micrococci” in the pus collected from 88 human abscesses. These isolated bacteria were capable of recreating the abscesses in healthy guinea pigs and mice upon injection. This preliminary effort by Dr Ogston paved the way to the understanding of an infectious agent, now known as S. aureus, which continues to be a massive threat to human health and wellbeing (Ogston 1984). It acts as a commensal of the normal human microbiota and is Communicated by Erko stackebrandt. * Malabika Biswas [email protected]‑pilani.ac.in Vijay Hemmadi [email protected]‑pilani.ac.in 1
Department of Biological Sciences, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, BITS-Pilani, K. K. Birla Goa Campus, NH17B, Zuarinagar, Goa 403726, India
asymptomatically carried by humans (20–40%), frequently found in skin flora, in the nostrils, and is a normal inhabitant of the lower female reproductive tract and anterior nares being the major sites of colonization. S. aureus has evolved as a highly infectious entity along with the emergence of numerous antibiotic
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