Staphylococcus aureus toxin-antitoxin system

Type I toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are widespread genetic modules in bacterial genomes. They express toxic peptides whose overexpression leads to growth arrest or cell death, whereas antitoxins regulate the expression of toxins, acting as labile antisense RNAs. The Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) genome contains and expresses several functional type I TA systems, but their biological functions remain unclear. Here we addressed and challenged experimentally, by proteomics, if a type I TA system, the SprF1/SprG1 pair, influences the overall gene expression in S. aureus. Deleted and complemented S. aureus strains were analyzed for their proteomes, both intracellular and extracellular, during growth. Comparison of intracellular proteomes between the strains points on SprF1 antitoxin as an agent downregulating protein expression. In the strain naturally expressing the SprG1 toxin, cytoplasmic proteins are excreted into the medium, but this is not due to unspecific cell leakages. Such toxin-driven release of the cytoplasmic proteins may modulate the host inflammatory response that, in turn, may amplify the S. aureus infection spread.