Infective endocarditis (IE) is a life-threatening infection of the heart endothelium and valves. Staphylococcus aureus is a predominant cause of severe IE and is frequently associated with infections in health care settings and device-related infections. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST), spa typing, and virulence gene microarrays are frequently used to classify S. aureus clinical isolates. Thi...

background and objectives: methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (mrsa) strains are divided into community associated (ca-) and hospital associated (ha-) mrsa. these strains vary in antimicrobial resistance and pathogenicity. s. aureus is one of the most common microorganisms in ocular infections. this study was aimed to determine antimicrobial resistance patterns and genetic characterist...

In settings of high methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) prevalence, detection of nosocomial transmission events can be difficult without strain typing. Prospective typing of all MRSA isolates could potentially identify transmission in a timely fashion, making infection control responses to outbreaks more effective. We describe the development and evaluation of a novel 19-target b...

We evaluated the BURP (based upon repeat patterns) algorithm, which relies on sequencing of the Staphylococcus aureus protein A gene (spa), for its ability to infer clonal relatedness within a population of 110 wild-type strains. BURP clustering of the resulting 66 spa types was highly concordant with multilocus sequence typing (96.5% concordance) and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (94.9%).

Molecular characterization of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates in three different Arab world countries (West Bank of Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq) was the aim of the study presented here. This is done on the basis of spa sequencing and staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) typing. The majority (92%) of the spa-tested isolates belonged to spa type t932 and pos...

Epidemiological and molecular data on community acquired methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) are still scarce in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia. There is almost no data regarding methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) prevalence in both countries. This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence and molecular epidemiology of S. aureus and MRSA nasal carriage amo...

Staphylococcus aureus belongs to one of the most common bacteria causing healthcare and community associated infections in China, but their molecular characterization has not been well studied. From May 2011 to June 2012, a total of 322 non-duplicate S. aureus isolates were consecutively collected from seven tertiary care hospitals in seven cities with distinct geographical locations in China, ...

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) represent a serious threat for public health worldwide. Of particular concern is the emergence of community-acquired MRSA, which is often difficult to distinguish from nosocomial MRSA due to a lack of suitable typing methods for early detection. For example, the USA300 pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) pattern includes both the 'classical...

We described the colonization dynamics of Staphylococcus aureus in a group of 266 healthy carriers over a period of approximately 1 year. We used precise genotyping methods, i.e., amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), spa typing, and double-locus sequence typing (DLST), to detect changes in strain identity. Strain change took place rather rarely: out of 89 carriers who had initially be...