Interspecies Regulation Between Staphylococcus caprae and Staphylococcus aureus Colonized on Healed Skin After Injury

Abstract

Staphylococcus spp. colonize commensally on the human skin. Some commensal coagulase-negative staphylococci and Staphylococcus aureus are also involved in nosocomial infections. Bacteria were collected from skin healed from pressure injury (PI). After the collection time points, some patients suffered from recurrent PI (RPI). This study analyzed the characteristics of Staphylococcus spp. on healed skin before recurrence between healed skin that suffered from RPI within 6 weeks (RPI group) and healed skin that did not suffer within the duration (non-RPI group) by Staphylococcus spp.-specific sequencing. Of the seven patients in the RPI group, two were dominated by S. aureus and four by Staphylococcus caprae, coagulase-negative human commensal staphylococci in the RPI group. Using mouse models, both S. caprae and S. aureus, but not Staphylococcus epidermidis, colonized on skin healed from injury at significantly higher rates than normal skin. Although subcutaneous injection of S. caprae did not induce lesion formation, the bacterium exhibited high hemolytic activity on human red blood cells. Lesion formation by subcutaneous injection of S. aureus was significantly suppressed in the presence of S. caprae. The hemolytic activity of rabbit blood cells of S. aureus was suppressed by S. caprae, whereas the hemolytic activity of S. caprae was dramatically suppressed by S. aureus. Data indicated that each of the two Staphylococcus spp. suppresses the pathogenicity of the other and that the imbalance between the two is associated with RPI.

Human microbiome and microbiota identification for preventing and controlling healthcare-associated infections: A systematic review

“…From a genomic point of view, they demonstrated the dominance of Staphylococcus caprae and Staphylococcus aureus over Staphylococcus epidermidis , whose presence showed extremely low results in all skin sites. Moreover, despite Staphylococcus aureus seeming to appear in an earlier RPI onset, it was detected alone in only two of the seven RPI patients in comparison to Staphylococcus caprae , which was observed alone four times ( 63 ).…”

A multilocus sequence typing method of Staphylococcus aureus DNAs in a sample from human skin

“…After excluding one RPI sample obtained immediately after bathing (RPI, N = 7; non‐RPI, N = 22), the 29 skin samples were analyzed for relative abundance ratios of Staphylococcus species at the collection time points using 16S ribosomal RNA metataxonomics and Staphylococcu s‐specific typing 28,38 . Previously, we found that relative abundance ratios of S. aureus were higher in the healed skins than in normal skins at the collection time, and that two of the seven healed skins that later suffered from RPI were predominated by S. aureus at high ratio of more than 70% 28 . In this study, we typed the seven healed and control skins.…”

“…28,38 Previously, we found that relative abundance ratios of S. aureus were higher in the healed skins than in normal skins at the collection time, and that two of the seven healed skins that later suffered from RPI were predominated by S. aureus at high ratio of more than 70%. 28 In this study, we typed the seven healed and control skins. In comparison, the seven non-RPI skins with a high S. aureus ratio were also typed.…”

“…After the proof of concept, we applied this assay for the analysis of the prevalence and typed S. aureus colonized on skins healed from pressure injury (PI) by using the skin DNAs that had been utilized for skin microbiome analysis. 28,29…”

“…In this study, we developed a multiplex‐nested PCR assay that allows MLST from mixed genomic DNA samples such as DNA extracted from human skins. After the proof of concept, we applied this assay for the analysis of the prevalence and typed S. aureus colonized on skins healed from pressure injury (PI) by using the skin DNAs that had been utilized for skin microbiome analysis 28,29 …”