Combating a Master Manipulator: Staphylococcus aureus Immunomodulatory Molecules as Targets for Combinatorial Drug Discovery.

Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterial pathogen that can cause significant disease burden and mortality by counteracting host defenses through producing virulence factors to survive the immune responses evoked by infection. This emerging drug-resistant pathogen has led to a decline in the efficacy of traditional antimicrobial therapy. To combat these threats, precision antimicrobial therapeutics have been created to target key virulence determinants of specific pathogens. Here we review the benefits of, progresses in, and roadblocks to the development of precision antimicrobial therapeutics using combinatorial chemistry.

Master mechanisms of Staphylococcus aureus: consider its excellent protective mechanisms hindering vaccine development!

Lack of known mechanisms of protection against Staphylococcus aureus in humans represents an important risk factor for skin infections and bacteremia in patients, intern hindering the development of efficacious vaccines. However, development of effective humoral response may be dampened by converging immune-evasion mechanisms of S. aureus. To develop a promising vaccine against S. aureus, it is pre-requisite to clear understanding of cutaneous, innate and adaptive immune response. The S. aureus dampening the humoral response, T cell help, blocking complement factors, and killing immune players by its toxins are the important factors need to understand clearly. We hypothesized that the master mechanism of S. aureus counteracts may hindering the immune action which may result in failure of target-oriented vaccine development. Developing immunological interventions that can effectively block the S. aureus counteracting mechanisms are the key success for a developing vaccine for the future was warranted.