Multi-modal imaging reveals dynamic interactions of Staphylococcus aureus within human neutrophils

Staphylococcus aureus is an important human pathogen that causes a wide range of infections. Neutrophils are an essential component of our innate immune system and understanding S. aureus-neutrophil interactions on a sub-cellular level is crucial to developing new therapeutic strategies to promote immunity during S. aureus infections. To this end we have developed a multi-modal imaging platform capable of following host-pathogen processes in biological systems, this is achieved by switching imaging modalities between a low photo-toxicity and low resolution imaging modality through an increasing illumination intensity to achieve live super-resolution imaging. This novel imaging platform was applied to the study of human neutrophils infected by S. aureus . We show that we can image different infection stages of S. aureus in live neutrophils with super resolution microscopy. We see evidence of binary fission occurring in intracellular S. aureus within a neutrophil. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.