aureus cultures, we measured the expression of RNAIII, the effector molecule of the agr response, which ultimately interacts with target genes to regulate transcription (Novick et al., 1993). As shown

in Fig. 2c and d, expression of hla and RNAIII was inhibited by IAL in a dose-dependent manner. Remarkably, when S. aureus was exposed to 8 μg mL−1 of IAL, the transcriptional levels of hla and RNAIII were reduced by 12.5- and 8.6-fold, respectively. The mode of action by which S. aureus controls α-toxin expression is fairly intricate and involves an interactive, hierarchical, regulatory cascade, which includes the products of RG7420 Sar, Agr, and other components (Chan & Foster, 1998). Therefore, check details this result indicates that the reduced α-toxin levels may be partly attributable to inhibition of the Agr two-component system by IAL. Human A549 alveolar epithelial cells have been commonly used as a model for human pulmonary epithelia in a variety of biological and physiological studies (Nizet et al., 1996; Hirst et al., 2002). Bubeck Wardenburg & Schneewind (2008) have demonstrated the critical role of α-toxin in human alveolar cell injury; for example, S. aureus strains lacking α-toxin do not cause cellular injury. Furthermore, Liang et al. (2009) have also demonstrated that wild-type α-toxin causes

significant death in epithelial cells (A549) in a dose-dependent manner. The addition of as little as 0.1 μg mL−1 α-toxin resulted in the death of approximately 50% of cells (Liang et al., 2009). In this study, A549 cells were co-cultured with S. aureus 8325-4 in the presence of increasing concentrations of IAL; the amount of cell death was determined using live/dead (green/red) reagent. As shown

in Fig. 3a, the uninfected A549 cell revealed a green fluorescent. Upon co-culturing with S. aureus HSP90 8325-4, cell death was apparent, as indicated by an increase in the number of red fluorescent dead cells and a change in the cellular morphology of the live cells (Fig. 3b). However, the addition of 8 μg mL−1 of IAL caused a marked decrease in A549 cell injury (Fig. 3c). The drug-treated co-culture contained 1‰ DMSO; therefore, the effect of DMSO on A549 cell viability was examined. As shown Fig. 3d, the addition of 1‰ DMSO resulted in the similar amount of cell death as in the IAL-free co-culture. The effect of the S. aureus DU 1090, an α-toxin-deficient mutant of S. aureus 8325-4, on cell viability was also investigated and resulted in no cell death (Fig. 3e). This result was consistent with a previous study that indicated that S. aureus strains lacking α-toxin did not cause cell injury in A549 cells (Bubeck Wardenburg & Schneewind, 2008). Additionally, cellular injury in this system was also quantitated by an LDH release assay, and the results are presented as percent cell death.