Dubin Grzegorz
Faculty of Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland.
Acta Biochim Pol. 2003;50(3):715-24.
Staphylococcus aureus is a human pathogen causing a wide range of diseases. Most staphylococcal infections, unlike those caused by other bacteria are not toxigenic and very little is known about their pathogenesis. It has been proposed that a core of secreted proteins common to many infectious strains is responsible for colonization and infection. Among those proteins several proteases are present and over the years many different functions in the infection process have been attributed to them. However, little direct, in vivo data has been presented. Two cysteine proteases, staphopain A (ScpA) and staphopain B (SspB) are important members of this group of enzymes. Recently, two cysteine protease inhibitors, staphostatin A and staphostatin B (ScpB and SspC, respectively) were described in S. aureus shedding new light on the complexity of the processes involving the two proteases. The scope of this review is to summarize current knowledge on the network of staphylococcal cysteine proteases and their inhibitors in view of their possible role as virulence factors.
金黄色葡萄球菌是一种可引发多种疾病的人类病原体。与其他细菌引起的感染不同，大多数葡萄球菌感染不产生毒素，人们对其发病机制了解甚少。有人提出，许多感染菌株共有的一组分泌蛋白核心负责定植和感染。在这些蛋白质中存在几种蛋白酶，多年来它们在感染过程中被赋予了许多不同的功能。然而，几乎没有直接的体内数据。两种半胱氨酸蛋白酶，葡萄球菌蛋白酶A（ScpA）和葡萄球菌蛋白酶B（SspB）是这组酶的重要成员。最近，在金黄色葡萄球菌中发现了两种半胱氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂，分别为葡萄球菌抑素A和葡萄球菌抑素B（分别为ScpB和SspC），这为涉及这两种蛋白酶的过程的复杂性提供了新的线索。本综述的范围是鉴于葡萄球菌半胱氨酸蛋白酶及其抑制剂作为毒力因子的可能作用，总结关于它们的当前知识。
