Elucidating the Linezolid response of Staphylococcus aureus USA300 by a holistic study

The translation inhibitor Linezolid is an important antibiotic of last resort against multiresistant gram-positive pathogens including MRSA. Linezolid is reported to specifically inhibit extracellular virulence factors, but the molecular cause is unknown. To elucidate the physiological response of S. aureus to Linezolid in general and the possible inhibition of virulence factors specifically we performed a holistic study. We added Linezolid to logarithmically growing S. aureus cells and analyzed the Linezolid stress response with transcriptomics, quantitative proteomics and microscopy experiments. As previously observed in studies on other translation inhibitors S. aureus is adapting its protein biosynthesis machinery to the reduced translation efficiency, for example the synthesis of ribosomal proteins is induced. But we also observed unexpected results like a general decline in the amount of extracellular and membrane proteins. In addition cell shape and size changed after Linezolid stress and cell division was diminished. Finally, the chromosome condensed after LZD stress and lost contact to the membrane. sample versus pool design (pool = mixture of equal amounts of all RNA samples analyzed), all RNA samples were isolated as biological triplicates