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Updated: May 8, 2026

A Tandem Liquid Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry-based Approach for Metabolite Analysis of Staphylococcus aureus
Published on: March 28, 2017
The mevalonate auxotrophic mutant of Staphylococcus aureus can adapt to mevalonate depletion
Wenqi Yu1, Martina Leibig, Tina Schäfer
1Microbial Genetics, Interfaculty Institute for Microbiology and Infection Medicine Tübingen (IMIT), University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Abstract:
In this study, we attempted to adopt the auxotrophic mevalonate synthase mutant (ΔmvaS mutant) of Staphylococcus aureus to study whether a nongrowing but viable cell population is tolerant to bactericidal antibiotics. The mevalonate-depleted nongrowing ΔmvaS mutant was found tolerant to antibiotics. Surprisingly, after prolonged cultivation, we obtained stable ΔmvaS variants that were able to grow without mevalonate, which suggested unknown mechanisms for compensating undecaprenyl pyrophosphate production without mevalonate in S. aureus.
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