Secrets of the secretome in Staphylococcus aureus

Secreted proteins constitute a reservoir of virulence factors. Here, an in silico analysis of the secretome of 15 S. aureus reference strains is presented revealing that about 30% of the encoded proteome of this bacterium could be secreted. In total 1354 proteins were predicted to be localized outside the cytoplasm representing the pan-secretome of S. aureus. 41% of these proteins have been identified to be expressed using different approaches. The function of at least 50% of the secreted proteins encoded by S. aureus is not yet clear and a possible role in virulence has to be elucidated.