Staphylococcus aureus Carriers Neutralize Superantigens by Antibodies Specific for Their Colonizing Strain:

Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most common causes of hospital-acquired infections. At the same time, 25 % of healthy persons are symptom-free S. aureus carriers, and they have an increased risk of developing nosocomial S. aureus septi-cemia. Paradoxically, their prognosis is much better than that of noncarriers. We compared the antibody profiles for car-riers and noncarriers toward S. aureus superantigens. In car-riers, we found high titers of neutralizing antibodies specific for those superantigens that are expressed by their colonizing strain. The results show that carriage status confers strain-specific humoral immunity, which may contribute to pro-tection during S. aureus septicemia. Staphylococcus aureus is a frequent cause of infection ranging from mild clinical symptoms (e.g., skin infections and food poisoning) to life-threatening conditions (e.g., pneumonia an