Discovering the mechanisms of strain-dependent response of Staphylococcus aureus to photoinactivation: Oxidative stress toleration, endogenous porphyrin level and strain's virulence

SummaryBackgroundStaphylococcus aureus is generally known to be susceptible to photoinactivation. However, the phenomenon of its strain-dependent response to photodynamic treatment has been reported. Moreover, the factors determining the emerging variation among strains according to photoinactivation remain unclear.MethodsThis work aimed to investigate any relevant correlation between bacterial toleration of oxidative stress, porphyrin level, photosensitizer uptake and strain's virulence of studied methicillin-susceptible and methicillin-resistant S. aureus strains and their response to photodynamic inactivation (using protoporphyrin diarginate, toluidine blue O and 5-aminolevulinic acid).ResultsObtained data let to demonstrate that studied factors have limited impact on strain response to PDI. However, we have shown that multicomponent sensitizing agent i.e. consisted of PPArg2, ALA and TBO would eliminate the S. aureus elevated resistance to photoinactivation and that both highly virulent and low virulent S. aureus strains could be easily eradicated with the use of PDI. Moreover, we have shown that photodynamic inactivation could decrease the virulence of S. aureus extracellular fraction.ConclusionThe mechanism underlying strain-dependent response to photoinactivation is complex and multifactorial nevertheless with the use of several sensitizing agents the elevated resistance to photodynamic treatment can be omitted.