Tyrosine availability shapes Staphylococcus aureus nasal colonization and interactions with commensal communities

Only certain individuals are nasally colonized by Staphylococcus aureus, making them more susceptible to developing endogenous infections. The role of the resident microbiota in modulating S. aureus nasal colonization remains largely unclear. Using a newly assembled nasal strain collection, we demonstrate that nasal commensals can either promote or inhibit S. aureus proliferation through strain- and community-specific effects in vitro and within gnotobiotic animals. We identified nutrient-dependent interactions as a key driver of these dynamics and found that S. aureus strains auxotrophic to tyrosine rely on amino acid-providing nasal communities to thrive in the nutrient-limited environment of the nose. Large-scale screenings revealed tyrosine dependency to affect 8% of nasal S. aureus strains and to impair S. aureus colonization. Our findings uncover a crucial factor in S. aureus physiology and its interactions as a commensal nasal species, paving the way for new decolonization strategies. Graphical abstract O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=141 SRC="FIGDIR/small/651429v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (40K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@17b6289org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@182249forg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1324dc1org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@18ec3bf_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG