Sambanthamoorthy Karthik, Schwartz Antony, Nagarajan Vijayaraj, Elasri Mohamed O
Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS 39406-0001, USA.
BMC Microbiol. 2008 Dec 16;8:221. doi: 10.1186/1471-2180-8-221.
Staphylococcus aureus is an important pathogen that forms biofilms. The global regulator sarA is essential for biofilm formation. Since the modulator of sarA (msa) is required for full expression of sarA and regulates several virulence factors, we examined the capacity of the msa mutant to form biofilm.
We found that mutation of msa results in reduced expression of sarA in biofilm and that the msa mutant formed a weak and unstable biofilm. The msa mutant is able to adhere to surfaces and begins to form biofilm but fails to mature indicating that the defect of the msa mutant biofilm is in the accumulation stage but not in primary adhesion.
The msa gene plays an important role in biofilm development which is likely due to its role in modulating the expression of sarA. This finding is significant because it identifies a new gene that plays a role in the development of biofilm.
金黄色葡萄球菌是一种形成生物膜的重要病原体。全局调控因子sarA对生物膜形成至关重要。由于sarA的调节因子（msa）是sarA充分表达所必需的，且调节多种毒力因子，我们研究了msa突变体形成生物膜的能力。
我们发现msa突变导致生物膜中sarA表达降低，且msa突变体形成的生物膜薄弱且不稳定。msa突变体能够黏附于表面并开始形成生物膜，但无法成熟，这表明msa突变体生物膜的缺陷在于积累阶段而非初始黏附阶段。
msa基因在生物膜形成过程中起重要作用，这可能归因于其在调节sarA表达中的作用。这一发现具有重要意义，因为它鉴定出了一个在生物膜形成中起作用的新基因。
