Bacteria of the genus Staphylococcus are common pathogens responsible for a broad spectrum of human and animal infections and belong to most important etiological factors causing food poisoning. Because of rapid increase in prevalence of isolation of staphylococci resistant to many antibiotics, there is an urgent need for development of new alternative chemotherapeutics. A number of studies have recently demonstrated the strong potential of peptidoglycan hydrolases (PHs) to control and treat infections caused by this group of bacteria. PHs cause rapid lysis and death of bacterial cells. The review concentrates on enzymes hydrolyzing peptidoglycan of staphylococci, usually they are characterized by high specificity to only S. aureus cell wall components, however some of them are also able to lyse cells of other staphylococci e.g. S. epidermidis - growing importance human pathogen and also other groups of bacteria. Some of PHs strengthen the bactericidal or bacteriostatic activity of common antibiotics as a result they should be considered as component of combined therapy which could definitely reduced development of bacterial resistance not only to both enzymes but also antibiotics. The preliminary research revealed that most of these enzymes can be produced using heterologous, especially E. coli expression system, however still much effort is required to develop more efficient and large scale production technologies. This review discusses current state on knowledge with emphasis on the possibilities of application of PHs in the context of therapeutics for infections caused by staphylococci.
Authors
Additional information
- Category
- Publikacja w czasopiśmie
- Type
- artykuł w czasopiśmie wyróżnionym w JCR
- Language
- angielski
- Publication year
- 2012
