Staphylococcus aureus: Molecular Mechanisms of Immune Evasion

Staphylococcus aureus remains a leading cause of community- and healthcare-associated infections, ranging from skin and soft-tissue disease to invasive syndromes such as bacteremia, endocarditis, and device-associated infections. A major reason for its clinical success is its ability to persist in the face of robust innate and adaptive immunity, often despite appropriate antimicrobial therapy. Understanding how this pathogen evades immune detection and killing is therefore central achieving mechanistic insight into pathogenicity and the development of prevention and treatment strategies in humans and animals.This research topic focuses on the molecular basis of staphylococcal immune evasion, with special emphasis on the functional diversity of S. aureus surface proteins that shape host–pathogen interactions. Additionally, the topic explores glycosyltransferases and distinct glycosylation patterns that alter antigen presentation, mask immune targets, and blunt opsonophagocytic clearance. By integrating new experimental findings with genome-informed and mechanistic perspectives, the collection will map what is known, spotlight what remains unclear, and propose rigorous methods to close these gaps—supporting the longer-term goal of identifying interventions that neutralize immune evasion and improve outcomes for difficult-to-treat infections. Staphylococcus aures immune evasion mechanisms will be examined through the following topics and beyond. • Structure–function relationships of key S. aureus surface adhesins and immune-modulatory proteins during infection• How strain-to-strain variation in surface protein repertoires changes virulence, tissue tropism, and immune escape• Mechanistic links between surface protein anchoring/sorting pathways and resistance to opsonophagocytosis• Roles of glycosyltransferases in modifying staphylococcal surface structures that affect immune recognition• How specific glycan patterns reshape antibody binding, complement activation, and Fc-mediated effector functions• Interactions between S. aureus immune evasion factors and neutrophil killing pathways (NETs, oxidative burst, degranulation)• Immune evasion in biofilm versus planktonic lifestyles, including implications for chronic and device-related infections• Genomic-based discovery of novel immune evasion loci and their evolutionary drivers in clinical and veterinary isolates• Host determinants that S. aureus exploits to enhance immune evasion• New experimental models and assay standards to quantify immune evasion phenotypes reproducibly across labs• Therapeutic concepts that target virulence and immune evasion (anti-adhesin strategies, anti-glycan approaches, anti-toxin combinations) Topic editors: Mohamed Elasri, Raiane Cardoso Chamon Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/83780/staphylococcus-aureus-molecular-mechanisms-of-immune-evasion