Staphylococcus aureus is a versatile and opportunist human pathogen, which is responsible of 30% of nosocomial infections. S. aureus is today an important public safety concern due to high persistence rate in hospital combined with emergence of multi resistant strains against antibiotics. The pathogenicity of the bacteria results from the expression of numerous virulence factors. An importance focus has been made to understand what triggers virulence genes expression. Regulatory RNAs are important regulators of genes expression in bacteria. In S. aureus, there is more than 50 RNAs identified, but there is a lack of investigations about their functions and regulatory networks. The aim of this work was to characterize the function and mechanism of action of RsaA and RsaE RNAs. RsaA is under the control of the stress factor sigma B. Computational analysis combined with global analysis of the proteome led to the discovery of one target : mgrA mRNA, which is a global transcription factor involved in autolysis and biofilm regulation. In vitro studies show that RsaA binds efficiently mgrA mRNA using two distant and cooperative interaction sites. Binding of RsaA to the mRNA prevents initiation of the translation. In vivo, rsaA gene deletion shows impact on biofilm and capsule production. By regulating the expression of mgrA mRNA, RsaA network is linked to agr system and virulence gene expression. In a more general way, this work shows that regulatory RNAs networks allow bacteria to modulate virulence, stress and metabolism gene expression depending on the signals provided by the environment of the bacteria.
