Staphylococcus aureus, in spite of antibiotics, is still a major human pathogen causing a wide range of infections. The present study describes the new vaccine A170PG, a peptidoglycan-based vaccine. In a mouse model of infection, A170PG protects mice against a lethal dose of S. aureus. Protection lasts at least 40 weeks and correlates with increased survival and reduced colonization. Protection...

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus sequence type 398 (ST398 MRSA) was identified in Dutch pigs and pig farmers. ST398 methicillin-susceptible S. aureus circulates among humans at low frequency (0.2%) but was isolated in 3 human cases of bacteremia (2.1%; p = 0.026). Although its natural host is probably porcine, ST398 MRSA likely causes infections in humans.

Linezolid in combination with ertapenem showed in vitro synergy against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains. We confirmed this interaction in vivo by using a rabbit endocarditis experimental model and simulation of the human pharmacokinetics in animals for both antibiotics. Linezolid plus ertapenem exhibited highly synergistic activity in vivo after 4 days of treatment.

In 928 Dallas County Jail detainees, nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus was found in 32.8% (26.5% methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus [MSSA] and 6.3% methicillin-resistant S. aureus [MRSA]), and hand carriage was found in 24.9% (20.7% MSSA and 4.1% MRSA). Among MRSA nasal carriers, 41% had hand MRSA carriage; 29% with hand MRSA carriage had no nasal S. aureus carriage. The preval...

In their recent paper, Kobayashi et al. evaluated the emergence of vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA) by genomic analysis (1). Based on whole-genome sequencing data for all U.S. VRSA strains isolated to date (2), they proposed that the development of resistance to vancomycin is an independent event in VRSA strains. It was our pleasure to read their article. We found that our resu...

We report here the complete genome sequence of the livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strain 08S00974 from sequence type 398 (ST398 LA-MRSA) isolated from a fatting pig at a farm in Germany.

A branching synthetic strategy was used to efficiently generate structurally diverse scaffolds, which span a broad area of chemical descriptor space, and their biological activity against MRSA was demonstrated.

We examined the effects of tigecycline on three types of exoproteins, α-type phenol-soluble modulins (PSMα1 to PSMα4), α-hemolysin, and protein A, in 13 methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates compared to those of clindamycin and linezolid. Paradoxical increases in PSMαs occurred in 77% of the isolates with tigecycline at 1/4 and 1/8 MICs and clindamycin at 1/8 MIC compared to only...

Several antibiotics have disulfiram-like effects; we evaluated disulfiram for its antibiotic-like effects. Disulfiram inhibited the in vitro growth of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, with an MIC of 1.33 micrograms/ml, but was not effective against members of the family Enterobacteriaceae or Pseudomonas species.

Livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (LA-MRSA) ST398 isolated from pigs raised in conventional farms was previously reported. Here we report a study on 25 farms adhering to an alternative system. LA-MRSA ST398 was not detected in nasal swabs from 178 pigs or from 89 humans working and living on these farms.