Staphylococcus Epidermis 1. Main biological features a. Cell shape, arrangement,
ID: 3506292 • Letter: S
Question
Staphylococcus Epidermis
1. Main biological features
a. Cell shape, arrangement, Gram stain, endospores, capsule, unusual features.
2. Clinical Manifestations
a. List the diseases that are produced by this microorganism.
3. Mechanism of Disease
a. List of how the microorganism induces disease: Toxin, proteolysis, pyogenic, immunological mechanism or multiple mechanisms.
4. Transmission
a. How the microorganism is transmitted and who is at risk of acquiring the infection.
5. Prevention
a. List the most common prevention methods
b. Is there a vaccine?
6. Treatment
a. Is antimicrobial intervention necessary?
b. Have resistant strains been detected?
c. List the common methods of treatment (you don’t need to list drug names).
d. Prognosis – Mortality associated with the disease
Explanation / Answer
ANSWER
1) Main biological features.
The bacteria are gram positive bacteria and are found in colonies. They are majorly as a part of the skin flora. They are cocci in shape and are found in a grape-like cluster arrangement. Non motile, they are found a white raised colony with a 1-2mm diameter after overnight incubation. These strains are resistant to antibiotics like penicillin, amoxicillin and methicillin.The organism does not produce endospores but capsule is present.
2) Clinical Manifestations
The organism is a facultative pathogen. It is associated with many diseases like septicemmia and endocarditis. they also cause infections in the transplants like valves and catheters. The infection to catheters in UTI are very painful and cause high inflamation. Another common infection by S. epidermis is causing sepsis (blood infection) which is a coomon cause of death in hospitals.
3) Mechanism of Disease
The bacteria secretes slime layer. This layer has adhesive property to prosthetics. This is due to the fact that the biofilm produced by the bacterial gene icaADBC has been said to code for both polysachharide intracellular adhesin and polysachharide capsule. The biofilm is adhesive to hydrophophic biofilm of the prosthetics leading to conditions like endocarditis.
Another aspect is the fibrinogen binding of the S. epidermis. The prosthetics instantly get exposed to the fibrinogen circulating around. These cocci produced a protein called fbe which aids in the attachement to fibrinogen leading to infectiion.
4)
S. epidermis is is found in abundance in the skin flora. Thus the cause of contact can very much be hands, or any other skin part. People with prosthetics are at a major risk to innate infection from S. epidermis. Pateints with catheters, heart valves posses major risk from these infections. Also as the bacteria is a normal flora occuring on the body, it is resistant to many antibiotics thus cure lies in vancomycin or rifampin.
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