Open AccessAssociation between nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus and the human complement cascade activator serine protease C1 inhibitor (C1INH) valine vs. methionine polymorphism at amino acid position 480
Author(s) -
Emonts Marieke,
De Jongh Christa E.,
HouwingDuistermaat Jeanine J.,
Van Leeuwen Willem B.,
De Groot Ronald,
Verbrugh Henri A.,
Hermans Peter W.M.,
Van Belkum Alex
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
fems immunology & medical microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1574-695X
pISSN - 0928-8244
DOI - 10.1111/j.1574-695x.2007.00250.x
Subject(s) - valine , staphylococcus aureus , genotype , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , carriage , serine , methionine , serine protease , amino acid , medicine , gene , protease , bacteria , genetics , biochemistry , enzyme , pathology , phosphorylation
Staphylococcus aureus produces compounds that interfere with complement deposition. We hypothesized that humans have developed countermeasures to staphylococcal complement evasion and we screened for single nucleotide polymorphisms in the serine protease C1 inhibitor ( C1INH ) gene at amino acid position 480 (valine vs. methionine) and nasal carriage of S. aureus . In our study cohort, 38 individuals were persistently colonized by S. aureus , whereas 50 were invariably culture‐negative. A trend was observed towards an increased prevalence of the Val/Val genotype in noncarriers compared to persistent carriers (OR 0.50, P =0.07). The Val/Val genotype was significantly overrepresented in noncarriers compared to 463 Caucasian blood donors (OR 0.52, P =0.02). These findings suggest that susceptibility to S. aureus nasal carriage is associated with the C1INH V480M polymorphism.