Abstract
Staphylococcus aureus is a potent gram-positive bacterium. It is recognized as one of the major causative agents for the community- and hospital-acquired diseases. Therefore, it has long been considered as a concern for public health. It causes many types of human infections, mainly soft tissue, bone, skin, respiratory, joint, gastrointestinal, and endovascular disorders. S. aureus can adapt different environments inside the host to modulate virulence using complex regulatory networks to sense diverse signals. This bacterium has the capacity to cross all barriers of the host immune and defense system. Hence it also possesses a strong spectrum of virulence factors. It is the major cause behind biofilm-related infections of indwelling medical devices, which is key responsible for huge healthcare cost every year in the developed countries. S. aureus has various virulence factors that are implicated in their pathogenesis. It can produce various toxins such as super-antigens that result in causative agents in disease entities such as toxic-shock syndrome, staphylococcal scarlet fever, etc. and has developed acquired resistance to most of the used antibiotics. Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) infections have reached epidemic levels in many parts of the world. MRSA causes severe healthcare-associated infections. It also induces various health related issues in dairy animals suffering from mastitis. This chapter describes the pathogenesis and antibiotic resistance of S. aureus. It also covers the recent advancement in the structural basis antibiotic multi-resistance acquisition and possible novel strategies for therapeutic intervention.
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Kumar, S. et al. (2020). Pathogenesis and Antibiotic Resistance of Staphylococcus aureus. In: Siddhardha, B., Dyavaiah, M., Syed, A. (eds) Model Organisms for Microbial Pathogenesis, Biofilm Formation and Antimicrobial Drug Discovery. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1695-5_7
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