Antimicrobial Peptide Resistance Mechanism Contributes to Staphylococcus aureus Infection

作者：Gordon Y. C. Cheung, Emilie L. Fisher, Joshua W. McCausland, Justin Choi, J. W. Collins, S. Dickey, M. Otto · 发表于：Journal of Infectious Diseases · 年份：2018 · DOI：10.1093/infdis/jiy024 · 被引用次数：40 · 研究领域：Biology、Medicine

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) constitute an important part of innate host defense. Possibly limiting the therapeutic potential of AMPs is the fact that bacteria have developed AMP resistance mechanisms during their co-evolution with humans. However, there is no direct evidence that AMP resistance per se is important during an infection. Here we show that the Staphylococcus aureus Pmt ABC transporter defends the bacteria from killing by important human AMPs and elimination by human neutrophils. By showing that Pmt contributes to virulence during skin infection in an AMP-dependent manner, we provide evidence that AMP resistance plays a key role in bacterial infection.