title: Slime production and cell surface hydrophobicity of nasopharyngeal and skin staphylococci isolated from healthy people.
abstract: The collection of 314 staphylococcal strains including Staphylococcus aureus and coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) was isolated from skin or nasopharynx of healthy people. It was found that the majority of staphylococci possessed the ability to produce slime intensively or moderately, irrespective of ecological niche-nose, throat or skin. Most of them showed the hydrophilic cell surface. However, among S. aureus skin isolates or CNS throat isolates predominated strains with hydrophobic cell surface. There was a slight correlation between slime production and the nature of cell surface among CNS isolates but not among S. aureus strains. It was found that most of slime-producing CNS strains showed hydrophilic cell surface, while slime-negative isolates usually possessed hydrophobic cell surface. Our data suggest that slime production but not cell surface hydrophobicity can be regarded as an essential colonization factor responsible for staphylococci adherence to skin or mucous membranes of upper respiratory tract. These data also suggest that slime production seems to be a general feature of staphylococci isolated from various niches of healthy people.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Microbiology, Medical University of Lublin, Chodźki 1, 20-093 Lublin, Poland.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Malm
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Biernasiuk
authors.forename: Renata
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Loś
authors.forename: Urszula
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Kosikowska
authors.forename: Marek
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Juda
authors.forename: Izabela
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Korona-Głowniak
authors.forename: Grzegorz
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Górniewski
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001422:Bacterial Adhesion; D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003030:Coagulase / Q000378:metabolism; D019276:Glycocalyx / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D057927:Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions; D008875:Middle Aged; D009305:Nasopharynx / Q000382:microbiology*; D012867:Skin / Q000382:microbiology*; D013210:Staphylococcus / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D003030:Coagulase