Publication Date

Spring 2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Biology

First Advisor

Timothy Gsell

Second Advisor

Aparna Palakodeti

Third Advisor

Walter Henne

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus, a gram-positive, commensal bacterium, is the cause of a multitude of opportunistic diseases and infections. While S. aureus has evolved ways to escape innate immune responses in the host, the mechanisms are not fully understood. One area of active research involves mechanisms by which S. aureus avoids detection by Pattern Recognition Receptors (PRRs), such as Nuclear Oligomerization Domain 2 (NOD2), present on the surface of and inside innate immune cells. This study aimed to design and optimize an assay that can be utilized to investigate S. aureus components that contribute to the activation of NOD2 receptors. The assay was designed using one wild type and two bacterial strains from the Nebraska Transposon Mutant Library (NTML), murine NOD2 transgenic cells, and two detection systems. I hypothesized that both mutant strains would have differential binding to NOD2 compared to the wild-type strain. Results showed that only one mutant strain, USA300_ 1095, which codes for the carA gene showed differential binding with our detection protocols. While this study focused on optimizing the assay, the protocols created can be expanded to the entire NTML to identify novel S. aureus genes involved in the NOD2 binding pathway.

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