Gene expression of innate immune response in endothelial cells

Gene expression in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) was investigated by microarray analysis after 4 h infection with S. aureus isolated from healthy nasal carriers (n=5) and from blood (n=5) of septic patients. All bacterial isolates were spa-typed and characterized with a DNA microarray to determine the presence of virulence genes. Keywords: infection studies, pathogen, S. aureus Five S. aureus (designated BI-BV) from a collection of blood culture isolates (Department of Clinical Microbiology, Ryhov County Hospital, Jönköping, Sweden) from septic patients were selected. Isolates from patients with diabetes, endocarditis, drug addicts and persons with an operation within the three last years were excluded. Two S. aureus isolates were from patients with an abscess in the psoas muscle, two from patients with spondylitis and one from a wound in the neck. Another five isolates (CI-CV) were randomly selected from a collection of S. aureus obtained from healthy male nasal carriers collected in a previous study.