The study of the cell walls of pathogenic microorganisms led to the understanding of important phenomena such as adhesion, virulence, formation of biofilms on implanted materials. Teichoic acid, with other components of the cell walls, is responsible for the sensitivity of bacteria to antibiotics and their number of immunotherapy properties. Some anionic polymers of cell walls of bacteria are involved in the processes of intercellular adhesion. These processes are based on ionic interactions of proteins of adhesin cells with specific receptors on the other cells. Teichoic acid can be such receptors. According to the literature data, teichoic acid of Staphylococcus aureus are involved in the binding of bacteria with mucosal epithelial cells. Thus, the degree of esterification of teichoic acid is related to adhesion and virulence properties of bacteria and their ability to interact with a variety of positively charged molecules, polymers and more.
The research objective is to determine the content of teichoic acids in the cells of clinical and reference strains S. aureus and to examine their interaction with the adhesive properties.
The work involved 55 clinical strains isolated from patients with different pyoinflammatory infection and 4 reference strains (ATCC 25923) as a control group. Obtaining pure culture is performed by conventional methods.
Extraction of teichoic acids from S. aureus cells was performed by adding it to the washings agar cultures of 10% concentration trichloroacetic acid, then precipitated with cold ethanol, washed with cold acetone, ethanol and ether in a desiccator. Teichoic acid content was determined by optical density, by the SP-46, having an elongation wave of 254 nm.
Results. In determining the content of teichoic acids in the cells of clinical and reference strains of S. aureus, it was found that their levels are different. Clinical strain rates were higher and amounted to (0.373±0.016) units of optical density than reference strains which amounted to (0.147±0.014) units of optical density. This is probably due to the higher degree of aggressiveness of the clinical strains and influences on the activation of compliment, which in its turn leads to a systemic reaction that results in a decrease in phagocytic activity. The study revealed a direct correlative relationship between the content of teichoic acids and adhesive properties performance (r=0,643), which may affect the ability of microorganisms to form biofilms.