CHARACTERIZATION OF HYPOTHETICAL PROTEINS SAS0760 AND SAS1738 FROM “COMMUNITY ASSOCIATED STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS” MSSA476

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus is known to cause a wide range of infections from simple, curable skin infections like carbuncles, furuncles, and impetigo to deadly infections such as bacteremia, osteomyelitis, endocarditis and post-operative infections. Recently, the emergence of multiple antibiotic resistances has posed a great challenge to therapeutics and infection management. Very early in therapeutics of Staphylococcus aureus infections, it acquired resistance to the penicillin, including methicillin [1], that was designed specifically for the penicillin resistant strains. These strains were designated methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Originally, MRSA was only seen in hospital-associated infections (HA MRSA) [2-4], but recently, MRSA found in community settings (CA MRSA) are more invasive infections [5, 6] with greater genetic diversity and hence different antibiotic resistance patterns [4, 7]. MSSA476 is a CA MRSA, though evolutionarily, it is closely related to MRSA252, a HA MRSA [2, 8]. Hence we decided to identify hypothetical proteins from MSSA476. Disease management involves understanding the properties of bacteria in order to tackle the infection efficiently and finding new effective drugs to kill the pathogen. Further understanding of such unique, unexplored hypothetical proteins and their characterization with relation to virulence will help understand the increased virulence of CA MRSA.