0, containing 0 mM and 1 mM linoleic acid, 1% ethanol. The neat to 10-6 dilutions are as indicated. Shown are representative images from one of multiple experiments. (B) Graph showing the relative survival of S. aureus SH1000 and SH1000 derivates using data from Figure 5A. Colonies

were counted after overnight incubation. Error bars represent ± SEM. Results from multiple experiments were analysed with Student’s t test. Discussion and conclusion S. saprophyticus is a major cause of community-acquired UTI in young women. Knowledge of the virulence mechanisms of S. saprophyticus has advanced in recent years, particularly with the acquisition and analysis of whole genome selleck compound sequence data. The majority of acknowledged virulence factors of S. saprophyticus are proteins tethered to the cell surface, which

with the exception of the Ssp lipase [12], are all involved in adhesion: Aas is an autolysin Ulixertinib price that also binds to fibronectin [10]; UafA adheres to uroepithelial cells via an unidentified ligand [8]; SdrI binds to collagen I and fibronectin [9, 31] and UafB binds to fibronectin, fibrinogen and urothelial cells [7]. Here we have identified another cell wall-anchored protein produced by S. saprophyticus that we have termed SssF – the sixth surface protein described for this species. The sssF gene was identified in the sequence of ZD1839 the pSSAP2 plasmid of S. saprophyticus MS1146 due to the presence of the canonical LPXTG sortase motif in the translated protein sequence. A copy of the sssF gene is also located on the pSSP1 plasmid of S. saprophyticus ATCC 15305 (99% nucleotide identity; Figure Olopatadine 1), but it was not acknowledged as encoding an LPXTG motif-containing protein [8]. We recently characterised another plasmid-coded LPXTG motif-containing protein of S. saprophyticus MS1146, UafB, as an adhesin [7]. We first sought to investigate whether SssF was another adhesin, since a considerable proportion of characterised Gram-positive covalently surface anchored proteins have adhesive functions [32], including every other known S. saprophyticus LPXTG motif-containing protein. No evidence of an adhesion phenotype for SssF was

detected. SssF protein sequence searches with the BLAST database provided an output of uncharacterised staphylococcal proteins with a maximum 39% amino acid identity to SssF across the entire protein sequence, mostly annotated as hypothetical cell wall-anchored proteins. In contrast to S. saprophyticus, the genes encoding these SssF-like proteins are located on the chromosome, rather than on a plasmid, in every other sequenced staphylococcal species. Some of these staphylococcal SssF-like proteins contain atypical sortase motifs. At this stage it is not known whether all of these proteins are sorted to the cell surface efficiently, but SasF has been shown to be associated with the cell wall of S. aureus 8325-4 even with the non-classical LPKAG sortase motif [33].