The Commensal Staphylococcus Warneri Makes Peptide Inhibitors of MRSA Quorum Sensing That Protect Skin from Atopic or Necrotic Damage.

The opportunistic pathogen Staphylococcus aureus accounts for the majority of all skin and soft tissue infections in the United States and infects 30–100% of atopic dermatitis (AD) lesions ( Geoghegan et al., 2018 Geoghegan J.A. Irvine A.D. Foster T.J. Staphylococcus aureus and atopic dermatitis: a complex and evolving relationship. Trends Microbiol. 2018; 26: 484-497 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (242) Google Scholar ; Parlet et al., 2019 Parlet C.P. Brown M.M. Horswill A.R. Commensal staphylococci influence Staphylococcus aureus skin colonization and disease. Trends Microbiol. 2019; 27: 497-507 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (96) Google Scholar ). Conversely, S. aureus only transiently colonizes healthy skin, suggesting that this pathogen may be actively excluded from this environment ( Geoghegan et al., 2018 Geoghegan J.A. Irvine A.D. Foster T.J. Staphylococcus aureus and atopic dermatitis: a complex and evolving relationship. Trends Microbiol. 2018; 26: 484-497 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (242) Google Scholar ). Healthy human skin is home to a diverse community of normal flora, including the coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS), and many CoNS directly compete with S. aureus through a variety of mechanisms to maintain skin homeostasis and colonization resistance ( Parlet et al., 2019 Parlet C.P. Brown M.M. Horswill A.R. Commensal staphylococci influence Staphylococcus aureus skin colonization and disease. Trends Microbiol. 2019; 27: 497-507 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (96) Google Scholar ).