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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, March 2006, p. 847-853, Vol. 44, No. 3
0095-1137/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.44.3.847-853.2006
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Detection of New Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Clones Containing the Toxic Shock Syndrome Toxin 1 Gene Responsible for Hospital- and Community-Acquired Infections in France

Centre National de Référence des Staphylocoques, Faculté Laennec, INSERM E0230, IFR62, 7 Rue Guillaume Paradin, 69372 Lyon Cedex 08, France,¹ Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom BA2 7AY,² Bioanalytique-Riotton, Unilabs, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland,³ Laboratoire Bactériologie Médicale, Centre Hospitalier Vaudois, CHUV BH 19S-230 CH 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland,⁴ Department of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan⁵

Received 1 September 2005/ Returned for modification 21 November 2005/ Accepted 28 December 2005

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) clones harboring the toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 (tst) gene have been detected in France and in Switzerland since 2002. During a passive survey conducted between 2002 and 2003, we collected 103 tst-positive S. aureus isolates from 42 towns in France, of which 27 were resistant to methicillin. The tst-positive MRSA belonged to two clones: a major clone comprising 25 isolates of sequence type (ST) 5 and agr group 2 and a minor clone comprising two isolates of ST30 and agr3. The tst-positive MRSA clones were associated with both hospital-acquired (12 cases) and community-acquired (8 cases) infections. The MRSA clones were mainly isolated from children (overall median age, 3 years). They caused a variety of clinical syndromes, including toxic shock syndrome and suppurative infections. Both clones were found to harbor a type IV staphylococcal chromosomal cassette mec (SCCmec) and to have similar antibiotic resistance profiles (usually resistant to oxacillin, kanamycin, and tobramycin and with intermediate resistance to fusidic acid). The origin of these clones is unclear. The tst-positive agr2 MRSA clone has the same sequence type (ST5) of two pandemic nosocomial MRSA clones, namely, the Pediatric clone and the New York/Japan clone. These findings suggest that all these clones are phylogenetically related. The pulsotype of the tst-positive MRSA clones differed from that of methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (MSSA) clones by a single band involving the SCCmec element. These findings suggest that the tst-positive MRSA clones may have emerged from their respective MSSA counterparts.

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