Panton–Valentine leukocidin antibodies for the treatment of MRSA skin infections?

Abstract

Evaluation of: Hermos CR, Yoong P, Pier GB. High levels of antibody to Panton–Valentine leukocidin are not associated with resistance to Staphylococcus aureus-associated skin and soft-tissue infection. Clin. Infect. Dis. 51(10), 1138–1146 (2010).

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has recently caused epidemic outbreaks of community-associated (CA) skin infections. The infecting strains frequently contain the genes encoding the staphylococcal toxin, Panton–Valentine leukocidin (PVL). On that ground, the use of PVL-based vaccines has been proposed for the treatment of CA-MRSA infections, despite experimental and epidemiological evidence that does not support a major role of the PVL toxin in CA-MRSA skin disease. Hermos et al. show that antibodies to PVL do not protect from CA-MRSA skin infections in children, strongly suggesting that PVL-based immunization is of little benefit for this most frequent disease caused by CA-MRSA.

Keywords::

• drug development
• MRSA
• Panton–Valentine leukocidin
• skin infections
• Staphylococcus aureus

Financial & competing interests disclosure

Michael Otto has received funding from the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Z01 AI000904-06). The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.