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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, January 2008, p. 235-241, Vol. 46, No. 1
0095-1137/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.00887-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Overlapping Population Structures of Nasal Isolates of Staphylococcus aureus from Healthy Dutch and American Individuals

Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Department of Medical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, s-Gravendijkwal 230, 3015 CE Rotterdam, The Netherlands,¹ Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road NE (G-08), Atlanta, Georgia 30333,² Department of Microbial Genomics, Keygene N.V., Agro Business Park 90, 6708 PW Wageningen, The Netherlands,³ Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Department of Bioinformatics, Dr. Molewaterplein 50, 3015 GE Rotterdam, The Netherlands⁴

Received 27 April 2007/ Returned for modification 26 July 2007/ Accepted 23 October 2007

To understand Staphylococcus aureus nasal carriage and its relationship with subsequent disease, insight into the natural (nonclinical) bacterial population structure is essential. This study investigated whether the distributions of S. aureus genotypes that cause colonization differ by geographic locales. High-throughput amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis was performed on nasal isolates of S. aureus from healthy American (n = 391) and Dutch (n = 829) volunteers. In total, 164,970 binary outcomes, covering 135 different markers per isolate, were scored. Methicillin resistance was defined for all strains; pulsed-field gel electrophoresis typing was performed for the American isolates. The overall population structures of the American and Dutch S. aureus isolates were comparable. The same four major AFLP clusters (I to IV) and subclusters were identified for both collections. However, the Dutch methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) isolates were overrepresented in AFLP cluster III (P = 0.0016). Furthermore, the majority of the American methicillin-resistant S. aureus isolates (90.5%) were located in AFLP cluster I (P < 0.0001). This result identifies differences in the local prevalence of certain S. aureus genotypes. AFLP clusters II and III, which represent multilocus sequence typing clonal complexes 30 and 45, respectively, account for 46.4% of all MSSA isolates in the study, suggesting that these two lineages have evolved as extremely successful pandemic colonizers of humans. In conclusion, the overall population structures of American and Dutch nasal carriage isolates of S. aureus are surprisingly similar, despite subtle geographic differences in the prevalence of certain S. aureus genotypes.

Published ahead of print on 31 October 2007.

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