Study of S. aureus implicated in bovine mastitis. Functional genomic characterization of Staphylococcus aureus isolates implicated in bovine mastitis

Mastitis is an infection of the mammary gland that is commonly associated with S.aureus. Within the dairy industry approximately 11% of milk production is affected due to mastitis. In addition, bovine-mastitis is a risk for human health due to possible ingestion of bacterial toxins/antibiotic residues upon treatment. Vaccination of cows against S.aureus antigens is a promising approach to prevent bovine-mastitis, but effective vaccines aren’t available. In this study, a reversed vaccinology approach, from in silico to the functional analyses with mastitic-cow sera, was applied to pinpoint domains of selected S.aureus surface proteins to identify highly immunogenic candidate antigens.