CN1: Integumentary System (Bacterial infections) Flashcards
Honey-colored, thin, friable crust spreading peripherally with central clearing
Staphylococcus aureus infxn
Predisposition to infection:
- Chronic S. aureus carrier state (nares, axilla, perineum, vagina)
- Warm weather/climate, high humidity
- Skin disease, especially atopic dermatitis, familial pemphigus
- Social situation: poor hygiene, crowded living conditions, neglected minor trauma
- Chronic disease: obesity, diabetes mellitus, HIV/AIDS
- Immune deficiency: cancer, chemotherapy
- Pre existing tissue injury or inflammation (surgical wound, burn, trauma, retained foreign body)
What is a nonmotile coccus, 0.8 to 1.0 um in diameter, that divides into three planes?
Staphylococcus aureus
- irregular clusters or in short chains
What are found characteristically in smears from cultures grown on solid media, whereas in broth cultures short chains and diplococcal forms are common?
Staphylococcus aureus
In a few strains of S. aureus, what enhances the virulence of the organisms?
capsule or slime layer
The cell wall of S. aureus consists of three major components:
- peptidoglycan
- teichoic acids
- protein A
What is a facultative anaerobic but growth is more abundant under aerobic conditions?
S. aureus
Growth occurs over a wide temperature range from 6.5C to 46C, with an optimum for S. aureus of _______.
30C to 37C
optimum temperature
What is the pH optimum of S. aureus with growth occurring over a range of pH 4.2 to 9.3?
7.0 to 7.5
optimum pH
Staphylococci grow well on most routine laboratory media such as
nutrient agar or trypticase soy agar
For primary isolation from clinical materials, what is recommended?
Sheep blood agar
On agar plates colonies, Staphylococcus aureus are:
smooth, opaque, round, low-convex, 1 to 4mm in diameter
on primary isolation: golden yellow colonies
The color can be attributed to _________________
Carotenoid pigments
extremely variable ranging from deep orange to pale yellow
What is the most convenient and reliable property for diagnostic purposes?
Coagulase - test tube method
an enzyme that cause the coagulation of plasma
What is useful for screening purposes and usually, correlating well with test tube results, detects a clumping factor in the surface of an organism that is distinct from the free coagulase?
Slide test
What is less reliable than the test tube method?
Slide test
What is a crucial factor in determining the initiation and the outcome of
staphylococcal infections?
Phagocytic response
Major determinants
In this process of host recognition and immunity, the cellular antigens of the staphylococcal cells, especially the surface ones
Antigenic structures and virulence factors of S. aureus:
- Teichoic Acid
- Protein A
- Peptidoglycan
- Clumping Factor
- Capsular Polysaccharide
- Polysaccharides
- Hyaluronidase
- Staphylokinase (Fibrinolysin)
- Nuclease
- Cytolytic Toxins
- Protein Receptors
- Enterotoxins
A major antigenic determinant of all strains of S. aureus is the group-specific ____ of the cell wall
Ribitol Teichoic Acid
What is the serologic determinant of this polysaccharide (teichoic acid)?
N-acetylglucosamine
What is not found in S. epidermis, which contains instead glycerol teichoic acid?
Ribitol teichoic acid
In the CW, TA is associated with peptidoglycan in an insoluble state, and requires ________ for its release.
Lytic enzymes
Most adults have a this type of reaction to teichoic acid, and low levels of precipitating antibodies are found in their sera.
cutaneous hypersensitivity reaction of the immediate type
Elevated levels of teichoic acid antibodies can result from:
staphylococcal disease, such as endocarditis or bacteremia
with metastatic foci of abscesses in which **drainage or antibiotic ther
What are infrequent in transient staphylococcal bacteremia?
Increases in teichoic acid antibodies
What is responsible for the rapid consumption of early-reacting complement components up to and including C5 in human serum?
Extracellular teichoic acid
What occurs as a consequence of immune complex formation between the antigen and specific human IgG antibodies?
Complement activation
What is found in the cell wall covalently linked to the peptidoglycan?
Protein A
is a group-specific antigen unique to S. aureus strains.
By induction of abortive, complement-consuming reactions, what protects staphylococci from complement-dependent opsonization?
Teichoic acid
Virtually all healthy donors have antibodies to the \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ in their serum. They are primarily of the IgG class and can cross the placenta.
peptidoglycan
What elicits both humoral and cellular immune responses?
Staphylococcal peptidoglycan
Peptidoglycan are primarily of what immunoglobulin class?
IgG
What can cross the placenta?
IgG
What increases the antipeptidoglycan IgG level especially when accompanied by a bacteremic phase?
S. aureus infections
What are potentially beneficial because of their opsonizing capacity, increased levels may predispose some patients to immune complex disorders?
Ab
The component on the cell wall of S. aureus that results in the clumping of whole staphylococci in the presence of plasma is referred to as the
Clumping factor
S. aureus expresses surface receptors for fibrinogen
Clumping factor binds ____ and differs from free coagulase in both its mechanism of action and its antigenic properties.
human fibrinogen
What is found almost exclusively in strains that produce the extracellular coagulase?
Cellular fibrinogen – binding component
What can give a negative clumping reaction, presumably because the clumping factor is covered by extracellular polysaccharides?
Encapsulated strains
When tested with ____, most strains isolated from clinical material are found to carry immunologically significant polysaccharide surface antigens.
monospecific antisera
What is a characteristic of a capsular polysaccharide?
Antiphagocytic
They interfere with the interaction between the underlying teichoic acid – peptidoglycan complex and complement, which is activated primarily through the alternative pathway.
Capsular Polysaccharide
these antigens are antiphagocytic
What encodes proteins involved in antibiotic resistance and other virulent factors?
Plasmids
S. aureus expresses surface receptors and uses these molecules as a bridge to bind to host endothelial cells:
- Fibrinogen (called
clumping factor) - Fibronectin
- Vitronectin
What has a polysaccharide capsule that allows them to attach to the artificial materials and to resist host cell phagocytosis?
Staphylococci infecting prosthetic valves
and catheters
What degrades lipids on the skin surface, and its expression is correlated with the ability of the bacteria to produce skin abscesses?
Lipase of S. aureus
Staphylococci also have protein A on their surface which binds in what portion of the Ig?
Fc
What is the pore-forming protein that intercalates into the plasma membrane or host cells and depolarizes them?
a-toxin
- a damaging hemolytic toxin
What is a sphingomyelinase?
B-toxin
What is a detergent-like peptide?
delta-toxin
Toxin on: Erythrocytes
Staphylococcal gamma-toxin
Toxin on: Phagocytic cells
Leukocidin
What is produced by S. aureus are serine proteases that split the skin by cleaving the protein desmoglein 1 which is part of the desmosomes that hold epidermal cells tightly together?
Exfoliative toxins
What can cause the superficial epidermis to split away from the deeper skin, making the patient vulnerable to secondary infections?
Exfoliative toxins
Exfoliation can occur at the site of what?
Staphylococcal skin infection (bullous impetigo)
What can be widespread when secreted toxin from a localized infection causes disseminated loss of the superficial epidermis?
Staphylococcal scalded-skin syndrome
What are the enzymes facilitating establishment of the organism on the skin and mucous membranes of the host?
Proteases
Lipases
Esterases
Lyases
By protecting the organisms from the complement-mediated attack of polymorphonuclear leukocytes, encapsulated staphylococci are able to what?
Spread rapidly through tissues
For colonization to occur, however, and the infectious process to be sustained, what is the essential initiating event?
Adhesion of the organisms to a biosurface
What enzyme hydrolyzes the hyaluronic acid present in the intracellular ground substance of connective tissue, thereby facilitating the spread of the infection?
Hyaluronidase
90% in S. aureus
The determinant for staphylokinase/fibrinolysin production is dependent on what?
A phage genome
and is expressed during lysogeny
In the dissolution of clots by the staphylococcal enzyme, what proenzyme is converted to the fibrinolytic enzyme plasmin?
Plasminogen
The enzyme, which is present in, at, or near the cell surface, is a compact globular protein
consisting of a single polypeptide chain.
Nuclease
What is among the best defined of the cytolytic toxins, a group of toxins that also includes streptolysin O and S and various toxins of Clostridium?
Hemolysins and leukocidin
What are produced by S. aureus, although strains may vary in the levels that they express?
Four distinct hemolytic toxins (a-, B-, d-, y-hemolysins)
These receptors provide the organism with an adhesion mechanism by which infective foci become established.
Protein Receptors
What are the plasma proteins that bind specifically to S. aureus?
fibronectin, fibrinogen, IgG, and C1q
Staphylococci also bind to components of what matrix?
Extracellular matrix (e.g., laminin, collagen, and fibronectin)
What exotoxins are members of a large group of pyrogenic protein toxins that mediate a spectrum of diseases with similar clinical manifestations and organ involvements?
Enterotoxins
1/3 S. aureus isolates produce exotoxins