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The opportunistic pathogen  Staphylococcus aureus  has become an increasing threat to public health. While the Agr quorum sensing (QS) system is a master regulator of  S. aureus  virulence, its dysfunction has been frequently reported to promote bacteremia and mortality in clinical infections. Here we show that the Agr system is involved in persister formation in  S. aureus . Mutation of either  agrCA  or  agrD  but not  RNAIII  resulted in increased persister formation of stationary phase cultures. RNA-seq analysis showed that in stationary phase AgrCA/AgrD and RNAIII mutants showed consistent up-regulation of virulence associated genes ( lip  and  splE , etc.) and down-regulation of metabolism genes ( bioA  and  nanK , etc.). Meanwhile, though knockout of  agrCA  or  agrD  strongly repressed expression of phenol soluble modulin encoding genes  psmα1-4 ,  psm β 1-2  and phenol soluble modulins (PSM) transporter encoding genes in the  pmt  operon, mutation of RNAIII enhanced expression of the genes. We further found that knockout of  psmα1-4  or  psm β 1-2  augmented persister formation and that co-overexpression of PSMαs and PSMβs reversed the effects of AgrCA mutation on persister formation. We also detected the effects on persister formation by mutations of metabolism genes ( arcA ,  hutU ,  narG , nanK, etc.) that are potentially regulated by Agr system. It was found that deletion of the ManNAc kinase encoding gene  nanK  decreased persister formation. Taken together, these results shed new light on the PSM dependent regulatory role of Agr system in persister formation and may have implications for clinical treatment of MRSA persistent infections.

The Agr Quorum Sensing System Represses Persister Formation through Regulation of Phenol Soluble Modulins in Staphylococcus aureus