Bacterial pathogens under high-tension: Staphylococcus aureus adhesion to von Willebrand factor is activated by force
Authors:Felipe Viela1, Pietro Speziale2,3, Giampiero Pietrocola2 and Yves F. Dufrêne1,4
1 Institute of Life Sciences, Université catholique de Louvain, Croix du Sud, 4-5, bte L7.07.06, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
2 Department of Molecular Medicine, Unit of Biochemistry, University of Pavia, Viale Taramelli 3/b, 27100 Pavia, Italy.
3 Department of Industrial and Information Engineering, University of Pavia, Italy.
4 Walloon Excellence in Life sciences and Biotechnology (WELBIO), Belgium.
Keywords:
Staphylococcus aureus, protein A, von Willebrand factor, endothelial cells, adhesion, mechanical force.
Related Article(s)?
Viela F, Prystopiuk V, Leprince A, Mahillon J, Speziale P, Pietrocola G, Dufrêne YF (2019). Binding of Staphylococcus aureus Protein A to von Willebrand Factor Is Regulated by Mechanical Force. MBio 10(2): e00555-19. , 10.1128/mBio.00555-19
Corresponding Author(s):
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Please cite this article as:
Felipe Viela, Pietro Speziale, Giampiero Pietrocola and Yves F. Dufrêne (2019). Bacterial pathogens under high-tension:Staphylococcus aureus adhesion to von Willebrand factor is activated by force. Microbial Cell 6(7): 321-323. doi: 10.15698/mic2019.07.684
© 2019 Viela et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduc-tion in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.
Abstract:
Attachment of Staphylococcus aureus to platelets and endothelial cells involves binding of bacterial cell surface protein A (SpA) to the large plasma glycoprotein von Willebrand factor (vWF). SpA-mediated bacterial adhesion to vWF is controlled by fluid shear stress, yet little is currently known about the underlying molecular mechanism. In a recent publication, we showed that the SpA-vWF interaction is tightly regulated by mechanical force. By means of single-molecule pulling experiments, we found that the SpA-vWF bond is extremely strong, being able to resist forces which largely outperform the strength of typical receptor-ligand bonds. In line with flow experiments, strong adhesion is activated by mechanical tension. These results suggest that force induces conformational changes in the vWF molecule, from a globular to an extended state, leading to the exposure of cryptic binding sites to which SpA strongly binds. This force-sensitive mechanism may largely contribute to help S. aureus bacteria to resist shear stress of flowing blood during infection.
doi: 10.15698/mic2019.07.684
Volume 6, pp. 321 to 323, published 11/06/2019.