Sublytic concentrations of Staphylococcus aureus Panton-Valentine leukocidin alter human polymorphonuclear leukocyte gene expression and enhance bactericidal capacity.

Community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) infections are often caused by strains encoding Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL). PVL can cause lysis of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) and other myeloid cells in vitro, a function considered widely as the primary means by which PVL might contribute to disease. However, at sublytic concentrations PVL can function as a PMN agonist. To better understand this phenomenon, we investigated the ability of PVL to alter human PMN function. PMNs exposed to PVL had enhanced capacity to produce superoxide in response to N-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine (fMLF), but unlike priming by lipopolysaccharide, this response did not require Toll-like receptor signal transduction. On the other hand, there was subcellular redistribution of NADPH oxidase components in PMNs following exposure of these cells to PVL - a finding consistent with priming. Priming of PMNs with other agonists such as IL-8 or GM-CSF altered the ability PVL to cause formation of pores in the plasma membranes of these cells. Microarray analysis revealed significant changes in the human PMN transcriptome following exposure to PVL, including up-regulation of molecules that regulate the inflammatory response. Consistent with the microarray data, mediators of the inflammatory response were released from PMNs after stimulation with PVL. We conclude that exposure of human PMNs to sublytic concentrations of PVL elicits a proinflammatory response that is regulated in part at the level of gene expression. We propose that PVL-mediated priming of PMNs enhances the host innate immune response.

30

Graves SF, Kobayashi SD, Braughton KR, Whitney AR, Sturdevant DE, Rasmussen DL, Kirpotina LN, Quinn MT, DeLeo FR