In humans with bullous impetigo and staphylococcal scaled-skin syndrome, virulent strains of Staphylococcus aureus produce two serotypes of exfoliative toxins (ETs), ETA and ETB, which cause skin exfoliation when injected into neonatal CDK assay mice (Kondo et al., 1975; Nishifuji et al., 2008). The deduced amino acid sequences and crystallographic analyses of ETA and ETB revealed that they have the structure of glutamate-specific serine proteases containing a catalytic triad, and a putative active site comprising serine, histidine and aspartic acid (Dancer et

al., 1990; Vath et al., 1997, 1999; Papageorgiou et al., 2000). Moreover, ETD, another serotype of ET produced by S. aureus, has been isolated primarily from humans with deep pyoderma (Yamaguchi et al., 2002; Yamasaki et al., 2006). Recent studies revealed that these three isoforms of ET are serine proteases, whose catalytic serine selectively hydrolyzes

a single peptide bond in the extracellular domains of human and mouse desmoglein 1 (Dsg1), a desmosomal cell–cell adhesion molecule (Amagai et al., 2000, 2002; Hanakawa et al., 2002; Yamaguchi et al., 2002). In Staphylococcus hyicus, five isoforms of ETs (SHETB, ExhA, ExhB, ExhC and ExhD) have been reported, whose amino acid sequences are homologous to those of S. aureus ETs (Sato et al., 1999; Ahrens & Andresen, 2004). Among the five isoforms of S. hyicus ETs, the four Exh isoforms were primarily isolated from S. hyicus causing exudative epidermitis in pigs (Futagawa-Saito et al., 2007). These Exh isoforms were also reported to induce skin exfoliation in piglets, buy Entinostat selectively digesting the extracellular domains of swine Dsg1 (Fudaba et al., 2005; Nishifuji et al., 2005). Digestion of Dsg1 by ETs causes the disruption of cell–cell adhesion

Lepirudin of keratinocytes predominantly in the upper spinous and granular layers, wherein loss of the adhesive function of Dsg1 is not compensated for by other Dsg isoforms (Amagai, 1999; Stanley & Amagai, 2006; Nishifuji et al., 2008). Recently, an exfoliative toxin gene (exi) was identified in the chromosomal DNA of a strain of Staphylococcus pseudintermedius isolated from canine pyoderma. The deduced amino acid sequence of the exi gene product (EXI) was homologous to known ETs and caused intraepidermal splitting in mouse skin (Futagawa-Saito et al., 2009). In addition, our laboratory found recently that EXI selectively digests the extracellular domain of canine Dsg1 and causes intraepidermal splitting in canine skin (K. Iyori & K. Nishifuji, manuscript in preparation). However, it has not yet been revealed whether S. pseudintermedius strains harbor other ET encoding genes. During genome sequence analysis of a clinically isolated EXI-negative S. pseudintermedius strain, an orf showing significant similarity to ET genes was identified.