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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, October 2007, p. 3302-3308, Vol. 45, No. 10
0095-1137/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.01082-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Comparison of Single- and Multilocus Sequence Typing and Toxin Gene Profiling for Characterization of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology (CIDM), Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research (ICPMR), Westmead, New South Wales, Australia,¹ Department of Dermatology, Hangzhou Third People's Hospital, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China,² Research Laboratory for Infectious Skin Diseases, Department of Dermatology, Wuhan First Hospital, Wuhan 430022, People's Republic of China³

Received 28 May 2007/ Returned for modification 2 August 2007/ Accepted 15 August 2007

We compared three novel methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) genotyping methods with multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and spa typing to assess their utility for routine strain typing. The new methods were femA and nuc sequence typing and toxin gene profiling (TGP), using a multiplex-PCR-based reverse line blot assay to detect 13 pyrogenic superantigen and exfoliative toxin genes. Forty-two well-characterized MRSA strains, representing 15 MLSTs or 9 clonal clusters (CCs), were genotyped by all methods. Twenty-two spa, nine femA, and seven nuc sequence types were identified. The femA sequence types correlated exactly with CCs; nuc sequences types were less discriminatory but generally correlated well with femA types and CCs. Ten isolates contained none of 13 toxin genes; TGPs of the remainder comprised 1 to 5 toxin genes. The combination of spa typing and TGPs identified 26 genotypes among the 42 strains studied. A combination of two or three rapid, inexpensive genotyping methods could potentially provide rapid MRSA strain typing as well as useful information about clonal origin and virulence.

Published ahead of print on 22 August 2007.