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Infection and Immunity, March 2005, p. 1847-1851, Vol. 73, No. 3
0019-9567/05/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/IAI.73.3.1847-1851.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Jose P. M. Senna,1,
Laurence Fiette,2
Spencer Shorte,3
Aurélie Testard,1
Michel Chignard,4
Patrice Courvalin,1 and
Catherine Grillot-Courvalin1*
Unité des Agents Antibactériens,1 Unité de Recherche et d'Expertise en Histotechnologie et Pathologie,2 Plate-forme d'Imagerie Dynamique,3 Unité de Défense Innée et Inflammation, INSERM E336, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France4
Received 22 September 2004/ Returned for modification 17 October 2004/ Accepted 4 November 2004
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Anterior nares are the major reservoir of S. aureus: 20% of humans are persistently and asymptomatically colonized, 60% are colonized intermittently, and 20% are noncarriers (13). Subgroups, such as cystic fibrosis (CF) patients, have higher carriage rates (10). Nasal carriage is a major risk factor for staphylococcal infection (7, 25). Commensal carriage of MRSA in healthy individuals remains low (from 0.2 to 2.8%) (6) but constitutes a greater risk for subsequent infection than methicillin-susceptible S. aureus carriage (13).
Mice constitute a good animal model for S. aureus nasal colonization; most mice inoculated with 108 CFU maintain carriage for at least 20 days (12). Recently, a cotton rat model in which S. aureus persists at higher CFU for up to 6 weeks (14) demonstrated the role of S. aureus wall teichoic acid in colonization (26). A mouse model, however, permits the study of inbred and knockout strains. We have modified the previous mouse model (12) and studied various MRSA isolates and knockout mice to dissect interactions between MRSA and the nasal tissue.
To assess anatomical location of intranasally introduced S. aureus, we used the stably bioluminescent MRSA Xen31 with a chromosomal copy of the modified Photorhabdus luminescens luxABCDE operon (Table 1). These bacteria were grown overnight in brain heart infusion medium at 37°C with shaking, washed twice, and resuspended in phosphate-buffered saline (Dulbecco) at 109 CFU/10 µl. Five- to eight-week-old female BALB/c mice (Harlan, Gannat, France) were anesthetized, and 10 µl of the bacterial suspension was introduced into both nares without touching the tip of the nose. The bioluminescent signal was strictly intranasal (Fig. 1A) and not detectable in the trachea or lungs. Bioluminescence monitored at 0, 12, 24, and 36 h after inoculation diminished during the first 24 h, disappearing by 36 h postinoculation (data not shown). Mice instilled intranasally with Xen31 were sacrificed after 12 h. The lower jaws were cut, the palate containing the nasal associated lymphoid tissue (NALT) was excised, and the nasal mucosa was exposed by cutting the head sagitally. The entire bioluminescent signal was located in the nasal mucosa, and no emission could be detected from the NALT (Fig. 1B). This is in contrast to bioluminescent group A streptococci, which were predominantly found in the NALT (16). The nasal mucosa dissected under a section microscope was exposed for bioluminetric detection; the whole bioluminescent signal was recorded from the dissected nasal tissue (Fig. 1C). Hence, this microsurgical method was used for the enumeration of CFU in the nasal cavity of mice inoculated with nonbioluminescent MRSA.
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TABLE 1. Properties of the strains
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FIG. 1. Bioluminescence from mice inoculated nasally with MRSA Xen31. (A) Bioluminescence from the entire mouse was recorded for 15 min with a backside Hamamatsu ORCA-3 camera, and the images were processed with Compix software (Compix Inc., Brandywine, Pa.). A strong bioluminescent signal was recorded from the nose of the mice upon inoculation and 12 h postinoculation. (B) Anatomical location of MRSA during colonization. Twelve hours after inoculation, mice were sacrificed and dissected as described in the text, and the palate and dissected NALT (white ovals) were exposed for bioluminetric analysis with a Xenogen 100 IVIS system. The entire bioluminescent signal was emitted from the nasal mucosa, and no signal could be detected from the NALT. (C) Upon microdissection, the whole photonic signal was recorded from the excised mucosal tissue.
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FIG. 2. Histological sections of the nasal cavities of control BALB/c mice (A) and BALB/c and CFTR/ mice 24 h after inoculation of strain COL (B and C, respectively). Hematoxylin-eosin (upper panel, 25x enlargement; middle panel, 400x enlargement of selected area) and Gram staining (lower panel, 1,000x) were performed with 5-µm-thick sections. Luminal cellular clumps spread along the nasal cornets are indicated with arrowheads (B1 and C1) and asterisks (B2 and C2). Bacteria that appeared to be located intracellularly within the cellular clumps composed of neutrophils and degenerated cells are denoted with an arrow (B3 and C3). In CFTR/ mice, bacteria were present along the nasal epithelium (C3).
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TABLE 2. Nasal colonization by MRSA strains COL and Xen31
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FIG. 3. Nasal colonization of mice by MRSA. Colonization by strain COL (open circles), BM4559 (open triangles), and BM4560 (open squares) was recorded on days 3 and 7 after inoculation. Each symbol represents CFU counts in a single mouse. The mean log10 CFU per nose for each group is represented by a horizontal line. Results are from a minimum of two independent experiments. Pairwise comparison of bacterial counts from the various groups of animals was performed with the Mann-Whitney U test. A P value of <0.05 was considered significant and is denoted with an asterisk.
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Methicillin resistance in S. aureus is mediated by mecA, a gene encoding additional penicillin-binding protein PBP2a with low affinity for ß-lactam antibiotics. When bacteria are grown in the presence of ß-lactams, the production of PBP2a is induced; PBP2a is exposed at the bacterial surface and can interact with host tissues (unpublished data). To test if PBP2a is implicated in nasal colonization, we used a mecA null COL derivative (8); colonization (mean, 4.5 x 104 CFU/mouse at day 3 and 2.3 x 102 CFU/mouse at day 7) was not significantly different from that by parental strain COL. Similarly, colonization was not significantly enhanced when strain COL was grown in the presence of oxacillin (mean, 4.9 x 104 CFU/mouse at day 3 and 8.5 x 102 CFU/mouse at day 7), indicating that PBP2a is not a colonizing factor.
S. aureus is often the first pathogen to infect CF patients, who can be colonized with the same strain for years (as reviewed in reference 18). Using the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) knockout mouse model (21), we inoculated intranasally CFTR/ and parental CFTR+/+ C57BL/6 mice (CNRS, Orleans, France) with MRSA COL. The CFTR/ mice harbored increased numbers of MRSA (mean, 4.5 x 105 CFU/mouse at day 3 and 3.7 x 103 CFU/mouse at day 7) compared to the CFTR+/+ parent (mean, 2.5 x 104 CFU/mouse at day 3 [P = 0.022] and 1.9 x 102 CFU/mouse at day 7 [P = 0.01]) (Fig. 3). The difference between the two mouse strains is an underestimate, since the CFTR/ mice are much smaller than their CFTR+/+ counterparts. Histological preparations of infected CFTR/ mice showed bacteria entrapped in a cell-loaded intraluminal mucus mostly present within the nasal cornets (Fig. 2C). Reduced mucociliary clearance of CF epithelia (27) and reduced bactericidal activity of the airway surface fluid (20) may account for increased survival of bacteria in the mucus of these animals.
Toll-like receptors 2 and 4 (TLR2 and TLR4) mediate an inflammatory response against several gram-positive and gram-negative pathogens, respectively, and TLR2-deficient mice are highly susceptible to S. aureus sepsis (22). Although it has been shown that both receptors are expressed in the human upper airway epithelium (4), little is known about their role in the nasal mucosa. We inoculated homozygous 8- to 10-week-old TLR2/ and TLR4/ knockout C57BL/6 (23) and age-matched wild-type mice. At day 3, 10 times more MRSA CFU were isolated from the nasal tissue of TLR2/ mice (mean, 9.1 x 105 CFU/mouse) than from C57BL/6 mice (mean, 6.3 x 104 CFU/mouse; P = 0.016) or from TLR4/ mice (mean, 1.4 x 104 CFU/mouse; P = 0.032) (Fig. 3). However, at day 7, there was no significant difference between the three groups of mice. These results suggest that TLR2, but not TLR4, is involved in the early stages of the innate immune response against nasal S. aureus colonization and that other TLR/interleukin-1 family members may play a role, as demonstrated in other infection models of S. aureus (22).
Direct in vivo monitoring of biofilm formation for up to 20 days by using bioluminescent S. aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in mice has been reported (11). These studies modeled foreign-body infection and used surgical subcutaneous implantation of catheters in the flanks, where bioluminescence detection is easier than through nasal bones. Under our technical conditions, bioluminescence could not be followed more than 24 h, yet strain Xen31 was still present 36 h after inoculation at a mean of 104 CFU/mouse (range, 2.4 x 103 to 1.8 x 104). Since bioluminescence production by bacteria depends on their metabolic activity (17), the constant decrease in the signal suggests that S. aureus did not multiply actively in the nasal cavity of the mice. Bioluminescence imaging under the present technical conditions will be useful to study factors involved in the early steps of colonization or to assess prevention of colonization, as shown previously in a thigh model of infection with S. aureus (9).
Humans can be colonized by a single S. aureus strain which can persist in the nasal cavity for months (10). We have demonstrated that PBP2a, responsible for methicillin resistance, does not play a role in colonization. However, only a small number of MRSA clones has been studied. Comparison of representatives of the five major pandemic clones (15) and of community-acquired MRSA (24) will allow determination of the role of other determinants encoded within or outside the staphylococcal chromosomal cassette (SCCmec) in colonization.
This work was supported in part by the Programme "Microbiologie Fondamentale et Appliquée, Maladies Infectieuses, Environnement et Bioterrorisme" from the Ministère Délégué à la Recherche et aux Nouvelles Technologies.
Present address: Departemento de Sanidad Animal, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain. ![]()
Present address: Laboratorio de Tecnologia Recombinante, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. ![]()
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