Staphylococcus aureus forms spreading dendrites that have characteristics of active motility

Pollitt, Eric J. G.; Crusz, Shanika A.; Diggle, Stephen P.

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus is historically regarded as a non-motile organism. More recently it has been shown that S. aureus can passively move across agar surfaces in a process called spreading. We re-analysed spreading motility using a modified assay and fo- cused on observing the formation of dendrites: branching structures that emerge from the central colony. We discovered that S. aureus can spread across the surface of media in struc- tures that we term ‘comets’, which advance outwards and precede the formation of dendrites. We observed comets in a diverse selection of S. aureus isolates and they exhibit the following behaviours: (1) They consist of phenotypically distinct cores of cells that move forward and seed other S. aureus cells behind them forming a comet ‘tail’; (2) they move when other cells in the comet tail have stopped moving; (3) the comet core is held together by a matrix of slime; and (4) the comets etch trails in the agar as they move forwards. Comets are not con- sistent with spreading motility or other forms of passive motility. Comet behaviour does share many similarities with a form of active motility known as gliding. Our observations therefore suggest that S. aureus is actively motile under certain conditions.

Citation

Pollitt, E. J. G., Crusz, S. A., & Diggle, S. P. (2015). Staphylococcus aureus forms spreading dendrites that have characteristics of active motility. Scientific Reports, 5(1), Article 17698. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep17698

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 3, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Dec 18, 2015
• Publication Date: Dec 18, 2015
• Deposit Date: Feb 24, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 24, 2016
• Journal: Scientific Reports
• Electronic ISSN: 2045-2322
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 5
• Issue: 1
• Article Number: 17698
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/srep17698
• Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus, motility, quorum sensing, surfactant
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/768986
• Publisher URL: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep17698