ABSTRACT: Staphylococcus aureus is the principal causative agent of osteomyelitis, a serious bacterial infection of bone that is associated with progressive inflammatory damage. Bone-forming osteoblasts have increasingly been recognized to play an important role in the initiation and progression of detrimental inflammation at sites of infection, and have been demonstrated to release an array of inflammatory mediators and factors that promote osteoclastogenesis and leukocyte recruitment following bacterial challenge. In the present study, we describe elevated bone tissue levels of the potent neutrophil-attracting chemokines, CXCL1, CXCL2, CXCL3, CXCL5, CCL3, and CCL7, in a murine model of post-traumatic staphylococcal osteomyelitis. RNA-Seq gene ontology analysis of isolated primary murine osteoblasts showed enrichment in differentially expressed genes involved in cell migration and chemokine receptor binding and chemokine activity following S. aureus infection, and a rapid increase in the expression of mRNA encoding CXCL1, CXCL2, CXCL3, CXCL5, CCL3, and CCL7, in these cells. Importantly, we have confirmed that such upregulated gene expression results in protein production with the demonstration that S. aureus challenge elicits the rapid and robust release of these chemokines by osteoblasts and does so in a bacterial dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, we have confirmed the ability of soluble osteoblast-derived chemoattractants to elicit the migration of a neutrophil-like cell line. As such, these studies demonstrate the robust production of CXCL1, CXCL2, CXCL3, CXCL5, CCL3, and CCL7, by osteoblasts in response to S. aureus infection, and the release of such neutrophil-attracting chemokines provides an additional mechanism by which osteoblasts could drive the inflammatory bone loss associated with staphylococcal osteomyelitis.
