Microbial drug resistance : MDR : mechanisms, epidemiology, and disease
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Microb. Drug Resist. · Oct 2016
Molecular Characterization of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Bloodstream Isolates in a Turkish University Hospital Between 2002 and 2012.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is one of the most important pathogens in the hospital environment. Monitoring of this pathogen by molecular characterization and phenotypic methods is important for the development of suitable infection control measures and proper therapy design. In this study, our aim was to investigate the molecular epidemiological characteristics of MRSA bloodstream isolates obtained from patients hospitalized at Ankara University Ibn-i Sina Hospital in a 10-year period (2002-2012) and monitor the possible changes. A total of 134 isolates were characterized according to their antimicrobial susceptibility profiles, biofilm formation capabilities, accessory gene regulator (agr) locus types, presence of genes encoding Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL), staphylococcal enterotoxins A-J (SEs A-J), toxic shock syndrome toxin, sasX, and genes associated with biofilm formation (icaD, icaA, IS256) by polymerase chain reaction. The staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) types of isolates were also defined and their clonal relationships were investigated by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) analysis and multilocus sequence typing was performed for representative isolates obtained by PFGE. ⋯ We have documented the characteristics of the dominant MRSA clone in our hospital, which was a PVL (-), sasX (-) ST239 clone carrying sea (+) with type-III SCCmec, and type-1 agr locus.