• Hilal Ozkul, I M Ali Oktem, and Zeynep Gülay.
• Dokuz Eylül Universitesi Tip Fakültesi, Mikrobiyoloji ve Klinik Mikrobiyoloji Anabilim Dali, Izmir.
• Mikrobiyol Bul. 2007 Jul 1; 41 (3): 357-62.

AbstractPanton-Valentin leucocidin (PVL) is a cytotoxin which causes tissue necrosis by degradating leucocytes and other cell types. PVL has recently become very up to date as it has been shown to be the major virulance factor of community acquired methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains. In this study, the presence of PVL was investigated in methicillin sensitive and resistant S. aureus (MSSA and MRSA, respectively) strains which were isolated from clinical samples between January 2005-May 2006 at Dokuz Eylul University Hospital, Izmir. Fifty five MRSA and 79 MSSA strains which were isolated from blood, wound and respiratory tract samples were randomly included to the study. The presence of PVL was evaluated by multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) which detects pvl and S. aureus-specific nuc genes. As a result, PVL positivities were detected in two (5%) of 40 MSSA and four (10.3%) of 39 MSSA strains isolated in the years 2005 and 2006, respectively. None of the MRSA isolates had pvl gene. Although this cytotoxin was rarely detected among MSSA isolates, it was interesting to note that the prevalence of PVL was twice more in the year 2006 compared to 2005. It was also worth to notify that four of six (66.7%) PVL positive strains had been isolated from the patients of general surgery inpatient or outpatient clinics.

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