Abstract
Staphylococcus aureus is an important pathogen that has a major impact on human health. Although it is notorious for causing skin and soft-tissue infections, it has the ability to infect nearly every organ system in the human body, often with fatal consequences. This remarkable adaptability is due in large part to the wide array of virulence factors it produces, many of which are encoded on plasmids, transposons, prophage, and pathogenicity islands. While these elements are important for genetic exchange in the environment, they have also been exploited to create genetic tools for manipulating this bacterium. These tools allow for the construction of defined chromosomal mutations, transposon insertion libraries, and protein expression systems that have greatly enhanced our understanding of staphylococcal pathogenesis.
Original language | English (US) |
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Title of host publication | Brenner's Encyclopedia of Genetics |
Subtitle of host publication | Second Edition |
Publisher | Elsevier Inc. |
Pages | 553-555 |
Number of pages | 3 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9780080961569 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780123749840 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 27 2013 |
Keywords
- Bacteria
- Genetics
- Gram-positive
- MRSA
- Mutation
- Plasmid
- Transduction
- Transposon
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
- General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
- General Medicine