Antibiotic adjuvant effects in VRSA-1

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a major threat to human health. Rather than depend on creating new antibiotics (to which bacteria will eventually become resistant), we are employing antibiotic adjuvants that potentiation existing antibiotics. To gain biological insight into how lead compounds potentiate antibiotics and inhibit biofilms, we used RNA-seq on treated VRSA-1 cultures to examine antibiotic adjuvant effects transcritome-wide. Overall design: Differential gene expression was examined between VRSA-1 cultures either untreated, treated with oxacillin only, treated with vancomycin only, treated with an antibiotic adjuvant (loratadine or compound 8), or cotreated with oxacillin or vancomycin and either loratadine or compound 8. Each of the treatments was performed with biological triplicates.