Staphylococcus aureus TarP: A Brick in the Wall or Rosetta Stone?

Dominique Missiakas

doi:10.1016/j.chom.2019.01.013

Staphylococcus aureus TarP: A Brick in the Wall or Rosetta Stone?

Cell Host Microbe. 2019 Feb 13;25(2):182-183. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2019.01.013.

Author

Dominique Missiakas¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Microbiology, The University of Chicago, 920 East 58(th) Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. Electronic address: dmissiak@bsd.uchicago.edu.

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus infection elicits antibodies against wall teichoic acid (WTA). Several glycosyltransferases modify WTA to generate anomeric heterogeneity. In recent work, Gerlach et al. (2018) show that modification by prophage-encoded TarP diminishes WTA immunogenicity, allowing staphylococci to evade host adaptive immune responses, and propose to exploit these insights for vaccines.

MeSH terms

Adaptive Immunity
Antibodies
Cell Wall / chemistry
Cell Wall / immunology
Glycosyltransferases
Humans
Staphylococcal Infections / immunology*
Staphylococcal Infections / microbiology
Staphylococcus aureus / immunology*
Streptococcal Vaccines
Teichoic Acids / immunology*

Substances

Antibodies
Streptococcal Vaccines
Teichoic Acids
Glycosyltransferases

Grants and funding

R01 AI110937/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States