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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, May 2009, p. 1300-1308, Vol. 47, No. 5
0095-1137/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.01537-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Staphylococcal Interspersed Repeat Unit Typing of Staphylococcus aureus: Evaluation of a New Multilocus Variable-Number Tandem-Repeat Analysis Typing Method{triangledown}

Teresa Conceição,1 Marta Aires de Sousa,1,2 and Hermínia de Lencastre1,3*

Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica (ITQB), Oeiras, Portugal,1 Escola Superior de Saúde da Cruz Vermelha Portuguesa (ESSCVP), Lisbon, Portugal,2 Laboratory of Microbiology, The Rockefeller University, New York, New York3

Received 8 August 2008/ Returned for modification 14 September 2008/ Accepted 25 February 2009

The present study evaluates the performance of the staphylococcal interspersed repeat unit (SIRU) method applied to a diverse collection of 104 Staphylococcus aureus isolates previously characterized by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), spa typing, multilocus sequence typing (MLST), and staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec typing for methicillin-resistant S. aureus. The SIRU method distributed the 104 strains into 81 SIRU profiles that could be clustered into 12 groups and 29 singletons. The discriminatory power of the method at the profile level, translated by Simpson's index of diversity (SID), was similar to that of PFGE subtyping (SID = 99.23% versus 99.85%) and slightly higher than that of spa typing (SID = 97.61%). At the group level, the SIRU SID (93.24%) was lower than that of PFGE typing (95.41%) but higher than that of MLST (SID = 91.77%). The adjusted Rand (AR) coefficient showed that SIRU typing at the group level had the highest congruence with MLST (AR = 0.5736) and with clonal complex (CC) (AR = 0.4963) but the lowest congruence with PFGE subtype (AR = 0.0242). The Wallace coefficient indicated that in the present collection, two strains with the same SIRU profile have a 100% probability of belonging to the same CC, a 90% probability of sharing the same spa type, and an 83% probability of being classified in the same sequence type. The high discriminatory power of the SIRU method, along with its apparent concordance with MLST results, makes it potentially valuable for S. aureus short-term epidemiological investigations and population dynamics as well.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Ave., New York, NY 10021. Phone: (212) 327-8278. Fax: (212) 327-8688. E-mail: lencash{at}mail.rockefeller.edu

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 4 March 2009.

Journal of Clinical Microbiology, May 2009, p. 1300-1308, Vol. 47, No. 5
0095-1137/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.01537-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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