ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Microbial Immunology
IL-1β, TNF-α, and IL-10 reduce cell viability and differentially alter biofilm structure and gene expression levels in Staphylococcus aureus USA 300
Provisionally accepted
Adriana Zavala
Christian Salto Reyes
Alejandro Bravo PatiñoVictor Manuel Baizabal Aguirre
Juan José Valdez Alarcón*- Centro Multidisciplinario de Estudios en Biotecnología, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Morelia, Mexico
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
During the development of infections by Staphylococcus aureus, it is exposed to signalling molecules from its host, including hormones, cytokines, chemokines of the immune system, as well as other substances secreted by the microbiota that coexist in the human niches. S. aureus infections cause inflammation, so immune modulation signals are some of the first to which it is exposed. These signals are perceived from the biofilms attached to infected tissues, and even before biofilm formation. In this work, we analysed whether S. aureus was capable of responding to immunomodulatory signals like TNFα, IL-1β (pro-inflammatory), or IL-10 (anti-inflammatory) cytokines. Biofilm formation and structure, as well as the relative gene expression of global virulence regulators, was evaluated in vitro in S. aureus strain USA300, of human origin. All cytokines decreased the biofilm formation index (BFI) value in a dose-dependent manner at concentrations ranging from 0.1 ng/ml to 100 ng/ml. Cytokines exhibit an inhibitory effect on cell viability and induce cytokine-specific structural changes in biofilms, as well as specific alterations in the expression of global regulators' genes.
Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus, Biofilm, Cytokines, microbial endocrinology, Gene Expression
Received: 14 Jul 2025; Accepted: 17 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zavala, Salto Reyes, Bravo Patiño, Baizabal Aguirre and Valdez Alarcón. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Juan José Valdez Alarcón, jose.alarcon@umich.mx
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.