Characterization of peripheral blood mononuclear cells gene expression profiles of pediatric Staphylococcus aureus persistent and non-carriers using a targeted assay

Defects in innate immunity affect many different physiologic systems and several studies of patients with primary immunodeficiency disorders demonstrated the importance of innate immune system components in disease prevention or colonization of bacterial pathogens. To assess the role of the innate immune system on nasal colonization with Staphylococcus aureus, innate immune responses in pediatric S. aureus nasal persistent carriers (n = 14) and non-carriers (n = 15) were profiled by analyzing co-clustered gene sets (modules). We stimulated previously frozen peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from these subjects with i) a panel of TLR ligands, ii) live S. aureus (either a mixture of strains or stimulation with respective carriage isolates), or iii) heat-killed S. aureus. We found no difference in responses between carriers and non-carriers when PBMCs were stimulated with a panel of TLR ligands. However, PBMC gene expression profiles differed between persistent and non-S. aureus carriers following stimulation with either live or dead S. aureus. These observations suggest that individuals susceptible to persistent carriage with S. aureus may possess differences in their live/dead bacteria recognition pathway and that innate pathway signaling is different between persistent and non-carriers of S. aureus.