Patent Application: US-201213446958-A

Abstract:
the present invention provides novel sequences encoding staphylococcus pseudintermedius proteins / nucleic acids potentially useful in the treatment and / or prevention of canine disorders . in particular , the various protein and / or nucleic acid sequences described herein may find application as vaccines for use in treating and / or preventing a variety of canine diseases and / or conditions caused or contributed to by staphylococcus pseudintermedius .

Description:
the invention will now be described in more detail with reference to the following figures which show : fig1 . genomic location of the 17 genes encoding putative cwa proteins in s . pseudintermedius strain ed99 . eight genes are situated in the oric environ , indicated in orange , and nine are located in the core genome . sps ═ s . pseudintermedius surface protein . fig2 . distribution of the genes encoding putative cwa proteins among 20 s . pseudintermedius strains , representatives of the closely related s . delphini and s . intermedius , and other staphylococcal species associated with animal skin disease . the diversity of strains is represented a phylogenetic tree ; grey squares indicate that the gene is present , blank squares that the gene is absent based on southern blot analysis ( for spsa to spso ), or pcr amplification ( for spsp and spsq ). fig3 . western blot analysis of cell wall - associated proteins of s . pseudintermedius ed99 and l . lactis expressing spsd , spsl , and spso with sera from dogs diagnosed with pyoderma . ( a ) sds page analysis and ( b ) western blot analysis of protein fractions from s . pseudintermedius ed99 in exponential phase of growth ( lane 1 ); l . lactis expressing spsl ( lane 2 ); l . lactis expressing spsd ( lane 3 ); l . lactis expressing spso ( lane 4 ); and l . lactis with pori23 alone ( lane 5 ). fig4 . adherence of l . lactis expressing specified mscramms to human fn . plates were coated with 1 μg of human fn or 1 μg of bsa per well . absorbance was measured at 590 nm and results are expressed as mean values of triplicate samples . error bars indicate standard deviation . l . lactis expressing fnbpa from s . aureus and pbs were included as controls . fig5 . adherence of l . lactis expressing specified mscramms to fg from different animal sources . plates were coated with 1 μg of fg or 1 μg of bsa per well . absorbance was measured at 590 nm and results are expressed as mean values of triplicate samples . error bars indicate standard deviation . l . lactis expressing fnbpa from s . aureus and pbs were included as controls . fig6 . adherence of l . lactis expressing specified mscramms to ck10 . plates were coated with 1 μg of recombinant ck10 or 1 μg of bsa per well . absorbance was measured at 590 nm and results are expressed as mean values of triplicate samples . error bars indicate standard deviation . s . aureus strain sh1000 in exponential and stationary phases of growth and pbs were included as controls . fig7 . adherence of l . lactis expressing different mscramms to canine corneocytes of five dogs . bacterial adherence is calculated as percentage area covered with bacterial cells per field of corneocytes ( roi = 500 μm 2 ). results are based on the arithmetic mean of duplicate experiments . the bottom of each box represents the first quartile ( q1 ), the top of the box the third quartile ( q3 ), the bold lines the median , and the black circles the mean values . the whiskers define the range of the data . fig8 : reactivity of canine convalescent serum from pyoderma cases to sps d , sps l and sps o recombinant a domain . 1 ug aliquots of rsps d and rsps l , and 10 μl volumes of purified rsps o were subjected to sds - page under standard conditions and coomassie stained ( a ) or western blot transferred onto a nitrocellulose membrane . membranes were probed with a 1 : 1000 dilution of canine serum , followed by a 1 : 3000 dilution of hrp — conjugated sheep anti - canine igg . reactive bands were visualized on chemi - luminescent film ( b ). 5 μl aliquots of recombinant cifb and the superantigen sei from s . aureus were included in the terminal lanes of each gel as negative controls . fig9 : inhibition of adherence of l . lactis expressing spsd ( a ) and spsl ( b ) to fibrinogen ( 2 μg per well ) by canine convalescent serum from pyoderma cases . bacterial cultures , normalised to an od600 of 1 in pbs were pre - incubated for 2 h with doubling dilutions of serum ranging from 2 % to ˜ 0 . 01 % ( v / v ), prior to inoculation into fibrinogen coated wells . results ( n = 3 , ± sd ) are expressed as absorbance readings at 590 nm minus background levels of fluorescence . background fluorescence was measured by inoculating control cultures , incubated for 2 h in the absence of serum , into wells coated with bsa ( 2 μg per well ). incubations of s . aureus newman ( c ) were included as a negative control . the s . pseudintermedius strain ed99 draft genome was interrogated for homologous sequences using position specific iterative basic local alignment search tool ( psi - blast ), available from the national center for biotechnology information ( ncbi ), usa , and for the presence of a lpx [ tsa ][ gans ] motif pattern by pattern hit initiated basic local alignment search tool ( phi - blast ), available from ncbi . signal sequences were predicted by employing the signalp server ( cbs . dtu . dk / services / signalp /), provided by the center for biological sequence analysis ( cbs ), technical university of denmark . the predicted cwa proteins were searched for functional domains using embl - ebi interpro scan . structural analysis was carried out with the phyre ( protein homology / analogy recognition engine ) fold recognition server , available from the structural bioinformatics group , imperial college london , uk . repeat sequences were predicted by generating nucleic acid dot plots , using software available from colorado state university , usa , applying tandem repeats finder software from boston university , usa , and variable sequence tandem repeats extraction and architecture modelling ( xstream ), available from the university of california , usa . sequence alignments and pair - wise sequence comparisons were generated with clustalw2 . amino acid composition and molecular weight predictions were generated using protparam on the expasy proteomics server . cloning of selected genes encoding putative mscramms of s . pseudintermedius ed99 into l . lactis mg1363 oligonucleotides were designed for pcr amplification of the full - length spsd , spsl and spso genes and either psti , sali or bamhi specific restriction sites were inserted on both sides of the dna fragments . 50 μl pcr reactions contained 2 μl ( approximately 100 ng ) genomic dna template , 0 . 25 μm forward primer , 0 . 25 μm reverse primer , 1 × pfuultra ™ ii reaction buffer ( stratagene , usa ), 0 . 25 mm dntp &# 39 ; s ( promega , usa ) and 1 μl pfuultra ™ ii fusion hs dna polymerase ( stratagene , usa ). the thermocycler programme included an initial denaturation step at 95 ° c . for 2 min , followed by 30 cycles of denaturation at 95 ° c . for 20 s , annealing at 50 ° c . for 20 s and extension at 72 ° c . for 2 min , followed by a final extension step at 72 ° c . for 3 min . pcr products were visualised on 0 . 8 % ( w / v ) agarose gels , gel extracted under avoidance of uv light exposure and purified using qiaquick gel extraction kit ( qiagen , uk ) according to the manufacturer &# 39 ; s instructions . purified dna fragments were cloned into the strataclone ™ blunt pcr cloning vector psc - b ( stratagene , usa ) using the strataclone ultra ™ blunt pcr cloning kit ( stratagene , usa ) according to the manufacturer &# 39 ; s instructions . each cloning reaction consisted of 3 μl strataclone buffer blunt ( stratagene , usa ), 2 μl purified pcr product and 1 μl strataclone ™ blunt vector mix ( stratagene , usa ). strataclone ™ solopack ® competent cells ( stratagene , usa ) were transformed according to the manufacturer &# 39 ; s instructions and colonies selected using blue - white screening on lb - ampicillin ( 100 μg / ml )- x - gal plates . white colonies were transferred into 5 ml lb - ampicillin ( 100 μg / ml ) broth and grown overnight at 37 ° c . with shaking at 200 rpm . plasmid was isolated using qiaprep spin miniprep kit ( qiagen , uk ) according to the manufacturer &# 39 ; s instructions . purified plasmids were digested using appropriate restriction endonucleases ( new england biolabs , uk ), and diagnostic digests were analysed on 0 . 8 % ( w / v ) agarose gels . for generating dna constructs , the e . coli - l . lactis shuttle vector pori23 ( kindly provided by p . moreillon , university of lausanne , switzerland ) was used . the pori23 vector carries the ermam gene for erythromycin resistance , the high - copy - number oricole1 replicon for autonomous replication in e . coli and the constitutive lactococcal promoter p23 ( que et al ., 2000 ). the multiple cloning site of pori23 consists of restriction sites for endonucleases psti , sali and bamhi ( que et al ., 2000 ). strataclone ™ plasmids containing the dna inserts of interest and the e . coli - l . lactis shuttle vector pori23 were each digested in a 100 μl total reaction volume containing 10 μl plasmid ( approximately 2 . 5 μg ), 20 units appropriate restriction endonucleases ( new england biolabs , uk ), and suitable buffers ( new england biolabs , uk ) according to the manufacturer &# 39 ; s instructions . restriction digestions were performed at 37 ° c . for 16 h . the restriction fragments to be cloned were extracted from 0 . 8 % ( w / v ) agarose gels without uv exposure as described in the general material and methods and purified using qiaquick gel extraction kit ( qiagen , uk ) according to the manufacturer &# 39 ; s instructions . dna inserts and restriction - digested pori23 plasmid were quantified using spectrophotometry ( nanodrop nd - 1000 , thermo scientific , usa ) and ligation reactions were carried out with a plasmid to insert ratio of 1 : 3 in a 10 μl total ligation reaction volume , consisting of 1 μl vector ( approximately 10 ng ), 400 units t4 dna ligase ( new england biolabs , uk ), 1 × t4 dna ligase reaction buffer ( new england biolabs , uk ), x μl dna insert ( depending on dna concentration ), and x μl sterile water ( depending on the volume of dna insert ). ligations were incubated at 16 ° c . for 16 h . one 50 μl aliquot of electrocompetent l . lactis cells was thawed on ice and 2 μl (˜ 20 ng ) pori23 plasmid carrying the dna insert of interest was added . electroporation cuvettes ( sigma - aldrich , uk ) were pre - chilled and l . lactis cells plus plasmid were transferred into the cuvettes . electroporation was performed at standard settings ( 25 μf , 23 kv , 200 ohm ) and 1 ml gm17 was added immediately . cells were incubated at 30 ° c . in a static incubator for 2 h prior to spreading 250 μl of cell suspension per plate onto gm17 plates containing 5 μg / ml erythromycin . plates were incubated overnight at 30 ° c . for screening of l . lactis transformants , plasmid was isolated using the qiagen miniprep kit ( qiagen , uk ) with addition of 100 u / ml mutanolysin ( sigma - aldrich , uk ) and 100 μg / ml lysozyme ( sigma - aldrich , uk ) to buffer p1 . diagnostic digests of purified plasmids were carried out with appropriate restriction enzymes and analysed on 0 . 8 % ( w / v ) agarose gels . additionally , colony pcr was performed for pori23 carrying spsd and spso using gene - specific oligonucleotides ( table 5 . 3 ). l . lactis colonies were resuspended in 10 μl 10 % ( v / v ) igepal ( sigma - aldrich , uk ) and incubated for 10 min at 95 ° c . in a thermocycler machine . 40 μl master mix containing 0 . 3 μm forward primer , 0 . 3 μm reverse primer , 0 . 2 mm dntp &# 39 ; s ( promega , usa ), 1 × reaction buffer ( promega , usa ), 1 . 5 mm mgcl 2 ( promega , usa ) and 0 . 025 u / μl taq polymerase ( promega , usa ) was added . the thermocycler programme included an initial denaturation step at 95 ° c . for 2 min , followed by 30 cycles of denaturation at 95 ° c . for 1 min , annealing at 50 ° c . for 1 min and extension at 72 ° c . for 1 min , followed by a final extension step at 72 ° c . for 7 min . pcr products were visualised on 0 . 8 % ( w / v ) agarose gels . samples were dissolved in 1 × laemmli sample buffer ( sigma - aldrich , uk ), boiled for 10 min and resolved by sds - page in 10 % polyacrylamide gels by standard procedures , and western blot analysis was carried out as described in the general materials and methods . three canine sera samples from pyoderma cases ( obtained from patients at the hospital for small animals , the royal ( dick ) school of veterinary studies , the university of edinburgh ) were pooled and used as primary antibody in a 1 : 1000 dilution . hrp - conjugated sheep anti - dog antibody was used as a secondary antibody in a 1 : 5000 dilution ( bethyl laboratories inc ., usa ). for preliminary experiments to confirm adherence of s . pseudintermedius ed99 and non - adherence of l . lactis , corneocytes were obtained from a seven - year - old male neutered border collie cross - breed with no history or physical signs of systemic or cutaneous disease . corneocytes for the l . lactis adherence study were obtained from five dogs of different breeds ( one labrador retriever , two border collies and two cross - breeds ). three dogs were ovariohysterectomised females and two were entire males . the median age was seven years ( range one to twelve years ). the dogs showed no abnormalities on general physical examination and had no history or physical signs of skin disease at the time of corneocyte collection . all dogs were privately owned by staff or students of the royal ( dick ) school of veterinary studies , the university of edinburgh . none of the dogs had received topical or systemic drug treatments for at least three weeks prior to the day of corneocyte collection . samples were taken from the ventral abdomen and inner thigh . if necessary , sample sites were clipped with oster clippers ( oster cryotech , usa ) using a number 40 blade . for collection of corneocytes , the method described by forsythe et al . ( 2002 ) was used . briefly , the area was cleaned of surface debris and commensal bacteria by applying four strips of single sided adhesive tape ( cellux , henkel consumer adhesives , uk ), using each strip once . to collect corneocytes , double - sided , clear , adhesive wig tape ( tropical tape super grip , usa ) was mounted onto a microscope slide in 1 cm 2 pieces and applied to the same area of skin surface 10 times with gentle force . slides were investigated by microscopic examination and only slides with at least 75 % corneocyte coverage were used in the study . the corneocyte slides were positioned in moisture chambers ( nunc ™ thermo fisher scientific , denmark ) as described by forsythe et al . ( 2002 ). the moisture chambers consisted of 30 cm × 30 cm plastic trays with lids and were prepared by lining the trays with moistened paper towels . s . pseudintermedius ed99 stationary or exponential ( od 600 of 0 . 5 ) phase cultures and l . lactis exponential phase cultures ( od 600 0 . 6 to 0 . 8 ) were centrifuged at 4000 rpm for 5 min , washed with pbs and resuspended in pbs to a final od 600 of 0 . 5 . the moisture chambers were placed in a static incubator and 250 μl of bacterial suspension was added to each 1 cm 2 of tape , forming a meniscus on the tape . slides incubated with 250 μl of sterile pbs were included as a control . the slides were incubated at 37 ° c . for 90 min and washed in pbs . each slide was stained with 0 . 5 % ( w / v ) crystal violet ( sigma - aldrich , uk ) for 90 s before rinsing off with pbs . the slides were air - dried and a drop of immersion oil ( cargille laboratories inc ., usa ) and a cover slip ( scientific laboratory supplies , uk ) were added before microscopic quantification . all slides were prepared in duplicate on the same day and incubated at the same time . prior to incubation with bacterial suspensions or pbs , each slide was labelled with a letter code to allow identification after the microscopic analysis . the identification code on each slide was hidden by a third party for subsequent image acquisition so that the investigator was blinded to the origin of the slide . for quantification of adherent bacteria , computerised image analysis was used as described previously by forsythe et al . ( 2002 ) with minor modifications . for each slide , bright field images of 1000 × oil - immersion fields were acquired with a sony dxc - 390p 3ccd colour video camera ( scion corporation , usa ) connected to a leica laborlux s microscope ( leica microsystems uk ltd ., uk ). the rgb video signal from the camera was digitised using scion image ( scion corporation , usa ) installed in a g4 macintosh computer ( apple computer , usa ) fitted with a cg - 7 frame grabber ( scion corporation , usa ). for image acquisition , fields equivalent to 14 . 4 mm 2 were selected randomly by starting in the bottom left corner of each slide and moving through the slide in a defined way using the scale on the microscope stage . a field was discarded if the corneocyte layer was not confluent , the bacteria were poorly stained against the background or the field could not be focused properly . the software used for quantification of bacterial adherence was set to calculate the percentage area that was covered by bacteria per confluent layer of corneocytes in a defined region of interest ( roi ) of 500 μm 2 within each image field acquired . previous studies by forsythe et al . ( 2002 ) using the same technique and software have demonstrated that 15 replicates of each duplicate slide resulted in acceptable coefficients of variation of approximately 10 %. in this study , 25 replicates of each slide were acquired and the overall mean percentage area of adherence was determined by calculating the mean of all replicates . identification of genes encoding 17 putative cell - wall - anchored proteins in the s . pseudintermedius ed99 genome the initial search for putative cwa proteins identified 34 sequences that fulfilled at least one of the search criteria ( homology to characterised mscramms in the database , predicted ( seq id no : 39 ) lpxtg motif or variant near the c terminus , predicted signal peptide at the n terminus ). after gap closure and combination of incomplete sequences , a total of 17 orfs encoding putative cwa proteins with a predicted minimum length of approximately 250 amino acids was determined . the 17 predicted cwa proteins were designated ‘ sps ’ for ‘ staphylococcus pseudintermedius surface proteins ’, followed by a capital letter ( spsa to spsq ). their position in the s . pseudintermedius ed99 genome is indicated in fig1 . of note , eight genes encoding putative cwa proteins are located near the oric environ ( fig1 ). homology searches in the database resulted in sequence identities with known staphylococcal proteins ranging from ˜ 30 % to ˜ 80 % ( table 1 ). signal sequences , necessary for sec - dependent protein secretion ( foster and hook , 1998 ), were predicted for 14 putative sps proteins , consisting of 29 aa for spsc and spsk , 33 aa for spsn , spsp , and spsq , 36 aa for spsd , 37 for spsg , 38 aa for spsa , spsb , and spsl , 39 aa for spsh , 44 aa for spso , and 48 aa for spsf and spsm . no signal sequence was predicted for spse , sps1 , and spsj ( fig4 . 3 ). the putative cwa proteins spsd , spsl , and spso have several mscramm features . the putative cwa proteins spsd , spsl , and spso have several mscramm features . out of the 17 putative cwa proteins of s . pseudintermedius ed99 , spsd , spsl , and spso contained each of the mscramm features screened for , including a signal sequence at the n - terminus , followed by a non - repeated a domain with two igg - like folds , dividing the a domain into n1 , n2 , and n3 subdomains , a tandemly repeated domain at the c - terminus ( and at the n - terminus for spso ), and a c - terminal ( seq id no : 39 ) lpxtg - anchor motif . the main characteristics of spsd , spsl , and spso are summarised in table 2 . of interest , a ( seq id no : 40 ) tytftdyvd motif or variant , important for the ‘ dock , lock and latch ’ ligand - binding mechanism ( ponnuraj et al ., 2003 ), was found in spsd , spsl , and spso , and putative latching sequences were identified ( table 2 ). further , putative fn - binding motifs with weak homology to fnbpa - 10 of fnbpa in s . aureus were detected in the repeat region of spsl ( 24 % identity in pair - wise alignments for spsl1 - spsl6 , and 21 % for spsl - 7 ). no homology to fn - binding motifs of fnbpa was detected in the repeat regions of spsd and spso . of note , the genes encoding for spsd , spsl , and spso in the s . pseudintermedius ed99 genome are situated in different genomic contexts . while spsd is located in a well - conserved region of the core genome , spsl is part of the oric environ ( takeuchi et al ., 2005 ) ( fig1 ). the spso gene appears to be species - specific as it is not present in the genomes of other staphylococcal species . the region contains two putative transposases , suggesting that the whole region might be subjected to horizontal gene transfer . distribution of the 17 genes encoding putative cell - wall - anchored proteins among the s . intermedius group in order to investigate the distribution of the 17 genes encoding putative cwa proteins identified in the s . pseudintermedius ed99 genome among other members of the sig and closely related staphylococcal species , southern blot analysis and pcr amplification were performed . a total of 20 s . pseudintermedius strains representing the breadth of diversity within the species , representatives of the closely related s . delphini and s . intermedius species , and other staphylococcal species associated with animal hosts ( fig2 ) were screened for the presence of the putative cwa encoding genes by southern blot analysis ( spsa to spso ). for the s . aureus spa orthologues spsp and spsq , pcr amplification was employed , as the genes share 70 % nucleotide identity which precluded design of gene - specific probes for southern blot analysis . for similar reasons , the primers designed for pcr amplification were located upstream of spsp ( spsp - f ), in the non - repeated region of spsp ( spsp - r ), in the unique region between spsp and spsq ( spsq - f ), and in a region unique for spsq ( spsq - r ). of the 17 genes examined , 13 were found in all s . pseudintermedius strains investigated . the remaining 4 ( spsf , spso , and the s . aureus spa orthologues spsp and spsq ) were present in 11 , 6 , 7 , and 11 of the 20 s . pseudintermedius strains , respectively . furthermore , 8 of the 17 genes were detected in s . delphini and 6 in s . intermedius , and 9 genes were exclusive to s . pseudintermedius . none of the genes encoding putative cwa proteins was detected in the non - sig staphylococcal species examined . results are summarised in fig2 . of note , it cannot be excluded at this point that dna sequence variation in pcr primer annealing sites for spsp and spsq , and weak homology ( less than approximate 70 %) for spsa to spso among different strains have influenced the results . expression of cwa proteins on the s . pseudintermedius bacterial cell surface . the in silico identification of 17 putative cwa proteins in s . pseudintermedius ed99 raises questions about the expression of these proteins and their role in colonisation and disease . surface proteome analysis of early -, mid -, and late exponential phase s . pseudintermedius ed99 was performed in collaboration with the moredun research institute , penicuik , scotland , uk , using liquid chromatography - electrospray ionisation - tandem mass spectrometry ( lc - esi - ms - ms ). six out of the 17 putative cwa proteins predicted in the s . pseudintermedius ed99 genome were detected on the bacterial surface , including spsd , spsk , spsl , spsn , spso , and spsq . the putative cwa proteins spsl , spsn , and spsq were identified in all three phases of growth ; spsk was lacking in early -, spso in mid -, and spsd in late exponential phase . the 11 undetected cwa proteins might not have been expressed under the conditions tested , or the expression level might have been below the detection threshold of the lc - esi - ms - ms method used . cloning and expression of spsd , spsl , and spso in l . lactis . in order to examine the role of putative selected mscramms independently on the bacterial cell surface , the full - length spsd ( 3096 bp ), spsl ( 2793 bp ) and spso ( 5538 bp ) genes were cloned into l . lactis using the shuttle vector pori23 ( que et al ., 2000 ). positive clones were identified by restriction digestion of purified pori23 plasmids from single colonies of transformed l . lactis cells ( data not shown ). the pori23 construct inserts were verified by dna sequencing for spsl and spsd . for spso , dna sequence was generated for approximately 3000 bp of the total length of 5538 bp . a segment of the repeat region corresponding to ˜ 2500 bp could not be determined due to the existence of identical tandem repeats which did not allow directed sequencing . as a negative control for subsequent mscramm characterisation studies , l . lactis was transformed with the empty vector pori23 , confirmed by restriction digestion analysis . the predicted molecular weights were 115 kda for spsd , 103 kda for spsl , and 198 kda for spso . l . lactis expressing spsd and spsl demonstrated seroreactivity with canine sera from pyoderma cases . the potential antibody response to spsd , spsl , and spso in vivo was investigated by western blot analysis employing canine sera from staphylococcal pyoderma cases . the pyoderma was clinically manifested at the time of blood sampling and the dogs were also diagnosed with ad ( neuber et al ., 2008 ). cell wall - associated protein fractions of the l . lactis constructs and of s . pseudintermedius ed99 were subjected to sds - page , transferred to nitrocellulose membrane and incubated with pooled canine sera from three pyoderma cases as described in materials and methods . an array of immunoreactive bands was detected for s . pseudintermedius ed99 , ranging from 24 kda to 102 kda in molecular weight ( fig3 ). for l . lactis expressing spsd and l . lactis expressing spsl , multiple seroreactive bands in the range of 38 kda to 225 kda for spsd , and 38 kda and 52 kda for spsl were detected , which were absent in the protein fractions of l . lactis carrying pori23 alone ( fig3 ). in contrast , l . lactis expressing spso did not demonstrate seroreactivity with sera from dogs diagnosed with pyoderma ( fig3 ). l . lactis expressing spso , spsd , spsl , and l . lactis carrying the vector pori23 alone were tested for their ability to adhere to human fn , human , canine , feline , and bovine fg , and to recombinant mouse ck10 in solid phase assays . the putative mscramms spsd and spsl mediate binding of l . lactis to fibronectin . l . lactis expressing spsd and spsl demonstrated adherence to human fn , whereas l . lactis expressing spso demonstrated increased binding to fn , but also to bsa , indicative of a non - specific interaction ( fig4 ). the putative mscramms spsd and spsl mediate binding of l . lactis to fibrinogen , and spsl demonstrates canine host - specificity . l . lactis expressing spsd strongly adhered to fg from several animal sources ( fig5 ). in contrast , l . lactis expressing spsl adhered to canine and feline fg only , and did not bind to human and bovine fg ( fig5 ), indicating a host - specific interaction . l . lactis expressing spso did not bind to fg from any source compared to l . lactis with the pori23 vector alone ( fig5 ). the putative mscramm spsd mediates binding of l . lactis to cytokeratin 10 . l . lactis expressing spsd demonstrated strong adherence to ck10 , whereas l . lactis expressing spso and spsl did not show increased binding compared to l . lactis with the vector pori23 alone ( fig6 ). the putative mscramms spsd and spso , but not spsl , mediate adherence of l . lactis to ex vivo canine corneocytes . l . lactis expressing spsd , spsl , and spso were tested for their ability to adhere to ex vivo canine corneocytes in comparison to l . lactis with the empty vector pori23 and s . pseudintermedius ed99 . l . lactis carrying the empty vector pori23 adhered poorly to canine corneocytes ( fig7 ). for s . pseudintermedius ed99 , the mean percentage adherence to canine corneocytes was 4 . 24 % which was significantly different to l . lactis carrying pori23 alone ( p = 0 . 001 ) ( fig7 ). l . lactis expressing spsd and l . lactis expressing spso adhered to ex vivo canine corneocytes ( fig7 ). the increase in adherence was approaching significance for spsd ( p = 0 . 050 ), and was significant for spso when expressed in l . lactis compared to l . lactis carrying pori23 alone ( p = 0 . 004 ). binding of l . lactis expressing spsl was not significantly different to l . lactis carrying pori23 alone ( p = 0 . 108 ), indicating that spsl does not promote adherence to canine corneocytes ( fig7 ). purified recombinant sps d , sys l , and sps o demonstrate reactivity with canine convalescent serum . reactivity of recombinant a domain from sps d , sps l and sps o with canine convalescent serum from pyoderma cases was examined by western affinity blot analysis ( fig8 ). rspsd , rspsl and rspso all crossreacted with igg present in the canine serum ( fig8 ). the ability of the reactive antibody present in convalescent serum to inhibit spsd and spsl ligand binding was investigated using a modified solid phase adherence assay . prior to inoculation into fibrinogen coated wells , pbs normalised cultures of l . lactis expressing spsd and spsl were incubated for 2 h with doubling dilutions of convalescent serum at 28 ° c . ( fig9 ). convalescent serum inhibited binding of l . lactis expressing spsl , but not spsd to canine fibrinogen , with complete inhibition at a final concentration of 2 % v / v ( fig9 ). in summary , genome - wide analysis of s . pseudintermedius ed99 revealed the presence of 17 genes encoding putative cwa proteins based on typical mscramm features . all mscramm characteristics searched for were identified for spsd , spsl , and spso , including a signal sequence , a non - repeated a domain with two igg - like folds , tandemly repeated regions , and a c - terminal lpxtg - anchor motif . interestingly , spsd , spsl , and spso belong to different groups based on southern blot analysis , with spsd being present in all sig members , spsl in s . pseudintermedius only , and spso in only six of the s . pseudintermedius strains investigated , and not in the other sig species tested . based on in silico analysis and in vitro expression data , spsd , spsl , and spso were selected for functional characterisation . all cwa proteins and in particular , spsd , spsl , and spso could be employed in passive and active immunisation studies to test their antigenic properties , either singular or in combination , in a similar fashion as proposed for s . aureus clfa ( josefsson et al ., 2001 ; hall et al ., 2003 ; patti , 2004 ; nanra et al ., 2009 ). further , a combinatory vaccine of s . aureus surface proteins isda , iron - regulated surface determinant protein b ( isdb ), sdrd , and sdre has proven to be highly protective in a mouse infection model ( stranger - jones et al ., 2006 ), demonstrating the promising potential of vaccine preparations containing multiple staphylococcal cwa proteins . in addition , mscramms with known ligands could be targets of anti - staphylococcal drug development , e . g . by generating synthetic peptides based on the interacting ecm proteins , which antagonise the mscramm - host protein interaction , but do not interfere profoundly with physiological processes in the host . an excellent example is provided by ganesh et al . ( 2008 ) who demonstrated that synthetic peptides , based on the fg - binding site for clfa , hinder the clfa interaction , but do not block binding of the platelet integrin α 11b β 3 to fg . recently , stranger - jones et al screened the genome of the human pathogen s . aureus for all genes predicted to encode cwa proteins , and immunized mice with each protein to determine their capacity to protect against lethal or invasive infection ( stranger - jones et al , 2006 ). four of the proteins were combined into a multiple protein vaccine which induced high levels of protection against s . aureus invasive disease of mice . these data have stimulated renewed optimism in a vaccine for the prevention of human s . aureus infections . a similar approach could be used to design an effective vaccine for the prevention of s . pseudintermedius canine pyoderma . s . pseudintermedius surface antigens were divided into 2 pools of 3 and 4 antigens , respectively . vaccine pool 1 contained antigens spsc , isaa , and spsn and vaccine pool 2 contained spsd a domain , n2 , n3 subdomains , spsl a domain ( seq id no : 37 ), and spsa . groups of 8 or 9 balbc mice were vaccinated subcutaneously with pool 1 or pool 2 or pbs , each with complete freund &# 39 ; s adjuvant , followed by additional vaccinations at day 8 and day 23 with incomplete freund &# 39 ; s adjuvant . on day 32 , mice were challenged through a subcutaneous route with 10 7 cfu s . pseudintermedius ed99 . mice were then examined for abscess formation , and weight loss . mice vaccinated with pool 2 ( comprising the protein having amino acid sequence provided in seq id no : 37 ) had significantly reduced lesion size (˜ 50 % reduction ), and significantly reduced weight loss (˜ 50 %) compared to pbs control mock vaccinated animals . bannoehr j , ben zakour n l , waller a s , guardabassi l , thoday k l , van den broek a h , fitzgerald j r . 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