Stress response of a clinical Enterococcus faecalis isolate subjected to a novel antimicrobial surface coating

Publication date: Available online 12 November 2017 Source:Microbiological Research Author(s): Emanuel Clauss-Lendzian, Ankita Vaishampayan, Anne de Jong, Uwe Landau, Carsten Meyer, Jan Kok, Elisabeth Grohmann Emerging antibiotic resistance among pathogenic bacteria, paired with their ability to form biofilms on medical and technical devices, represents a serious problem for effective and long-term decontamination in health-care environments and gives rise to an urgent need for new antimicrobial materials. Here we present the impact of AGXX®, a novel broad-spectrum antimicrobial surface coating consisting of micro-galvanic elements formed by silver and ruthenium, on the transcriptome of Enterococcus faecalis. A clinical E. faecalis isolate was subjected to metal stress by growing it for different periods in presence of the antimicrobial coating or silver-coated steel meshes. Subsequently, total RNA was isolated and next-generation RNA sequencing was performed to analyze variations in gene expression in presence of the antimicrobial materials with focus on known stress genes. Exposure to the antimicrobial coating had a large impact on the transcriptome of E. faecalis. After 24minutes almost 1/5 of the E. faecalis genome displayed differential expression. At each time-point the cop operon was strongly up-regulated, providing indirect evidence for the presence of free Ag+-ions. Moreover, exposure to the antimicrobial coating induced a broad general stress response in E...
Source: Microbiological Research - Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: research