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Imperatorin inhibits the expression of alpha-hemolysin in Staphylococcus aureus strain BAA-1717 (USA300)

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek volume 109, pages 915–922 (2016)Cite this article

Abstract

Both community-associated and hospital-acquired infections with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have been increasingly reported around the world in the past 20 years. In 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 64 % of MRSA isolates were of the USA300 clonal type in infected patients in USA. The aim of our study was to estimate the in vitro effect of imperatorin on MRSA strain BAA-1717 (USA300). The effects of imperatorin on alpha-hemolysin (Hla) production, when strain BAA-1717 was co-cultured with sub-inhibitory concentrations of imperatorin, were analysed using susceptibility testing, hemolysis assays, western blotting and real-time PCR. Live/Dead analysis and cytotoxicity assays were employed to examine the protective effect of imperatorin against the strain BAA-1717-mediated injury of human alveolar epithelial cells (A549). The results showed that imperatorin has no anti-S. aureus activity at the tested concentrations in vitro. However, imperatorin can observably inhibit the production of Hla in culture supernatants and reduce the transcriptional levels of hla (the gene encoding Hla) and arg (the accessory gene regulator). Imperatorin prevented Hla-mediated A549 epithelial cell injury in a co-culture system. In conclusion, our results suggested that imperatorin has the potential to be developed as a new anti-virulence drug candidate for managing S. aureus infection.

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Acknowledgments

The study was funded by the Sichuan Agriculture (Grant No. 03571444) and by China Postdoctoral Science foundation (Grant No. 2015M582563). We gratefully thank Wang Jianfeng and Zhou Xuan (Jilin University, College of Veterinary Medicine) for their technical assistance.

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Affiliations

  1. College of Veterinary Medicine, Sichuan Agriculture University, Chengdu, China

    Ping Ouyang, Junjie Chen, Mao Sun, Zhongqiong Yin, Juchun Lin, Hualin Fu, Gang Shu, Changliang He, Cheng Lv, Kaiyu Wang, Yi Geng & Lizi Yin

  2. College of Veterinary Medicine, Jilin University, Changchun, China

    Xuming Deng

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  1. Ping Ouyang
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  2. Junjie Chen
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  3. Mao Sun
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  4. Zhongqiong Yin
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  5. Juchun Lin
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  6. Hualin Fu
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  7. Gang Shu
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  8. Changliang He
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  9. Cheng Lv
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  10. Xuming Deng
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  11. Kaiyu Wang
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  12. Yi Geng
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  13. Lizi Yin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lizi Yin.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

Ethical standard

The defibrinated rabbit blood was purchased from Zheng Zhou Jiu Long Biological Products Co Ltd and no animals were directly used in the experiments reported here.

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Ouyang, P., Chen, J., Sun, M. et al. Imperatorin inhibits the expression of alpha-hemolysin in Staphylococcus aureus strain BAA-1717 (USA300). Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 109, 915–922 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10482-016-0690-9

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Keywords

  • Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
  • USA300
  • Alpha-hemolysin
  • Imperatorin
  • Virulence factor