Infect. Immun. doi:10.1128/IAI.01576-06
Copyright (c) 2007, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.
Muropeptide modification in Staphylococcus aureus: amidation of peptidoglycan d-glutamate does not affect the proinflammatory activity of S. aureus
Dirk Kraus,
Hubert Kalbacher,
Julia Buschmann,
Brigitte Berger-Bächi,
Friedrich Götz,
and
Andreas Peschel*
Cellular and Molecular Microbiology Division, Medical Microbiology and Hygiene Institute, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany; Medical and Natural Sciences Research Center, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany; Microbial Genetics, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany; Medical Microbiology Institute, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email:
andreas.peschel{at}uni-tuebingen.de.
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Abstract |
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Peptidoglycan muropeptides, potent proinflammatory components, are amidated in Staphylococcus aureus for unknown reasons. To study whether this modification may modulate the proinflammatory capacity, cytokine induction by isogenic S. aureus strains with different amidation levels and by synthetic amidated/nonamidated muramyldipeptides was compared. However, amidation did not significantly affect cytokine induction. This finding contributes to defining peptidoglycan receptor specificities and indicates that further rationales for muropeptide amidation have to be considered.