Effect of Three Different Amino Acids Plus Gentamicin Against Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Juan Guo; Zhiyu Pan; Lvyuan Fan; Yilin Zhong; Rui Pang; Yubin Su

doi:10.2147/IDR.S411658

Effect of Three Different Amino Acids Plus Gentamicin Against Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Infect Drug Resist. 2023 Jul 20:16:4741-4754. doi: 10.2147/IDR.S411658. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Juan Guo^#¹, Zhiyu Pan^#¹, Lvyuan Fan¹, Yilin Zhong¹, Rui Pang², Yubin Su¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Cell Biology & Institute of Biomedicine, National Engineering Research Center of Genetic Medicine, MOE Key Laboratory of Tumor Molecular Biology, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Bioengineering Medicine, College of Life Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, People's Republic of China.
² Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Microbial Safety and Health, State Key Laboratory of Applied Microbiology Southern China, Guangdong Institute of Microbiology, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, People's Republic of China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: The issue of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) resistant to many antibiotics and causing serious infectious diseases is a growing healthcare concern.

Purpose: In recent years, exogenous administration of metabolites in combination with antibiotics can re-sensitize resistant bacteria to antibiotics; however, their effects vary, and their underlying mechanism of action remains elusive.

Methods: We assessed the bactericidal effects of the three amino acids in combination with gentamicin in vitro and in vivo. Subsequently, we explored the role of these amino acids on the metabolomics of MRSA using Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Furthermore, we performed the downstream analyses using MetaboAnalyst and Interactive Pathways Explorer.

Results: Exogenous threonine showed the best bactericidal efficacy with gentamicin, followed by glycine, wherein serine had no effect. Amino acid treatments mainly up-regulated the metabolites, increased the amino acid abundance, and significantly activated metabolisms; these effects were consistent with the bactericidal efficacy of the three amino acids. Most amino acids participated in the tricarboxylic acid cycle, and threonine supplementation increased the activities of citrate synthase, isocitrate dehydrogenase and α-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, whereas glycine increased activities of citrate synthase and α-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, and serine did not affect the activities of any of the three key enzymes. We identified 24 biomarkers in the three groups, among which glutamic acid and cysteine showed a gradient decrease and increase, respectively. Subsequent analyses revealed that glutamic acid but not cysteine promoted the bactericidal effect of gentamicin synergistically.

Conclusion: Threonine has the best synergistic effect in reversing bacterial resistance compared to glycine and serine. We show that different amino acids combined with an antibiotic mainly affect amino acid metabolism and act via different metabolic regulatory mechanisms, which could help develop effective strategies for tackling MRSA infections.

Keywords: amino acid; gentamicin; metabolic regulation; metabolomics; methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Grants and funding

This research was sponsored by National Natural Science Foundation of China (42076095), Project of Guangzhou Science and Technology Planning (202102021206) and Guangdong Province Natural Science Foundation (2022A1515010408).