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Updated: Jan 22, 2026

Development and Assessment of Intracellular Infection Models for Staphylococcus aureus
Published on: January 17, 2025
Targeting intracellular, multi-drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus with guanidinium polymers by elucidating the
Agnès Kuroki1, Arnaud Kengmo Tchoupa2, Matthias Hartlieb1
1Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK.
Abstract:
Intracellular persistence of bacteria represents a clinical challenge as bacteria can thrive in an environment protected from antibiotics and immune responses. Novel targeting strategies are critical in tackling antibiotic resistant infections. Synthetic antimicrobial peptides (SAMPs) are interesting candidates as they exhibit a very high antimicrobial activity. We first compared the activity of a library of ammonium and guanidinium polymers with different sequences (statistical, tetrablock and diblock) synthesized by RAFT polymerization against methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and methicillin-sensitive strains (MSSA). As the guanidinium SAMPs were the most potent, they were used to treat intracellular S. aureus in keratinocytes. The diblock structure was the most active, reducing the amount of intracellular MSSA and MRSA by two-fold. We present here a potential treatment for intracellular, multi-drug resistant bacteria, using a simple and scalable strategy.
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