Functional mgrA Influences Genetic Changes within a Staphylococcus aureus Cell Population over Time.

ABSTRACT: Prolonged survival in the host-bacteria microenvironment drives the selection of alternative cell types in Staphylococcus aureus, permitting quasi-dormant sub-populations to develop. These facilitate antibiotic tolerance, long-term growth, and relapse of infection. Small Colony Variants (SCV) are an important cell type associated with persistent infection but are difficult to study in vitro due to the instability of the phenotype and reversion to the normal cell type. We have previously reported that under conditions of growth in continuous culture over a prolonged culture time, SCVs dominated a heterogenous population of cell types and these SCVs harbored a mutation in the DNA binding domain of the gene for the transcription factor, mgrA. To investigate this specific cell ty

SUBMITTER: Lee J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9578419 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature