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Differences in humoral immune response between patients with or without nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus

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Abstract

The humoral immune response against 43 staphylococcal antigens was compared among hospitalized patients where none of them had any staphylococcal infection on the day of admission with or without nasal Staphylococcus aureus carriage. Fifty-nine carriers and 59 matched non-carriers were studied. The carriers harbored S. aureus of 35 different spa types, including three t037/ST239 methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) (5.1%). Among the 118 patients, 31 acquired S. aureus during hospitalization. In colonized and non-colonized patients, unique patterns of S. aureus-specific immune responses were observed. The mean fluorescence indices (MFIs) of antibodies against 36/43 (83.7%) antigens were seen to be elevated among carriers. The MFI among carriers with acquisition was significantly higher for staphylococcal superantigen-like protein 5 (SSL5, p = 0.028) when compared to carriers without acquisition. High antibody levels against staphylococcal enterotoxin A (SEA) among carriers illustrate its role as a superantigen in both infection and colonization. We also report a dynamic immune response in S. aureus-carrying patients against the recently reported formyl peptide receptor-like inhibitory (FLIPr)-like protein. In the current study, the dynamics of antibodies against staphylococcal antigens among carrier patients seem quite similar to non-carrier patients. To better understand the dynamic immunogenicity during S. aureus infection and colonization, artificial colonization studies and investigation of the changes in the levels of antibodies against other staphylococcal antigens are recommended.

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Acknowledgments

We take this opportunity to thank Hospital Kuala Lumpur and all the patients who participated in the present study. We greatly appreciate the kind collaboration of all doctors, sisters, and staff nurses involved in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

    H. Ghasemzadeh-Moghaddam, R. A. Hamat & V. K. Neela

  2. Education Development Center, North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences, Bojnurd, Iran

    H. Ghasemzadeh-Moghaddam

  3. Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    W. van Wamel & A. van Belkum

  4. Scientific Office, bioMérieux, La Balme-les-Grottes, France

    A. van Belkum

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  1. H. Ghasemzadeh-Moghaddam
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  2. W. van Wamel
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  3. A. van Belkum
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  4. R. A. Hamat
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  5. V. K. Neela
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Correspondence to V. K. Neela.

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Funding

This study was funded by the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), Malaysia through Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (1068 FR) and Universiti Putra Malaysia.

Conflict of interest

None to declare except that Alex van Belkum is an employee of bioMérieux, a company developing and selling infectious disease diagnostics.

Ethics approval

This study was performed upon approval from the National Institutes of Health for conducting research in the Ministry of Health Malaysia (NMRR-10-488-5953).

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The subjects were included in the study only when the subjects or their close relatives provided oral consent.

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Ghasemzadeh-Moghaddam, H., van Wamel, W., van Belkum, A. et al. Differences in humoral immune response between patients with or without nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus . Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis 36, 451–458 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10096-016-2817-3

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