Molecular typing of staphylococcus aureus and investigation of biofilm formation of isolates collected from jordan. (c2010)

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus has long been recognized as an important pathogen associated with different types of diseases in humans. The increase in the frequency of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) as the causal agent of nosocomial infection and the possibility of emergence of resistance to vancomycin demands a quick and trustworthy characterization of isolates and identification of clonal spread within hospitals. In this study 68% of clinical S. aureus isolates (n=60) collected from Jordan were MRSA. Molecular typing of those isolates was done through spa typing, pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). It was found that each of these typing techniques had a certain discriminatory power and thus a combination of both would be essential for proper epidemiological studies aiming at understanding and controlling the spread of infections specially in the hospital environment. spa typing showed that spa type t044 was the most common type and represented 28% of the isolates studied and 38% of the MRSA population. PFGE revealed that isolates having the same spa type do not necessarily have the same banding patterns. PFGE has shown to have a higher discriminatory power than spa typing; different PFGE banding patterns were detected for samples of the different and/or the same spa types.