Human Antibody Responses against Virulence Factors of Staphylococcus aureus during Infection

Staphylococcus aureus is an infamous bacterial pathogen which can produce a wide array of virulence factors, enabling it to cause many different infections with significant morbidity and mortality in humans. The ability of S. aureus to form biofilm and its rising resistance against antibiotics further complicate treatment of many infections. Therefore, alternative treatment strategies, such as vaccination, are receiving great scientific and clinical interest. However, despite the many different virulence factors that have been targeted by vaccines and their promising effects in animal models, so far all clinical trials failed to demonstrate any favourable effect in humans. Thus, there remains a need for more insights into the presence of S. aureus virulence factors and their ability to induce an antibody response during infection in humans.
The general aim of this thesis was twofold; to provide further insights into the presence of a wide range of well-characterized virulence factors of S. aureus during growth in in vitro and ex vivo infection models, mimicking the in vivo situation during different infection in humans, and to further characterize the human antibody response during these different infections.
The high-throughput, bead-based Luminex assay was used together with confirmation by additional techniques such as RT-PCR and mass-spectrometry throughout this thesis to achieve these aims. Data concerning in vitro presence of -and in vivo antibody responses against S. aureus virulence factors are compared and, together, can help in identifying potential targets for novel vaccination strategies.