Staphylococcus aureus phenotype switching: an effective bacterial strategy to escape host immune response and establish a chronic infection

Ben_Norman — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:16:46 -0800

Staphylococcus aureus is a frequent cause for serious, chronic and therapy-refractive infections in spite of susceptibility to antibiotics in vitro. In chronic infections, altered bacterial phenotypes, such as small colony variants (SCVs), have been found. Yet, it is largely unclear whether the ability to interconvert from the wild-type to the SCV phenotype is only a rare clinical and/or just laboratory phenomenon or is essential to sustain an infection. Here, we performed different long-term in vitro and in vivo infection models with S.

EMBO Molecular Medicine

EMBO Molecular Medicine

Staphylococcus aureus phenotype switching: an effective bacterial strategy to escape host immune response and establish a chronic infection