Description
Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) is a potent cytotoxin and an important virulence factor of Staphylococcus aureus. The toxin causes tissue necrosis and selectively disrupts leukocyte membranes, thus leading to enhanced virulence. Comprising two exoproteins encoded by two contiguous, cotranscribed, phage-encoded genes lukS-PV and lukF-PV, PVL has been epidemiologically associated with virulent and highly transmissible strains of S. aureus