Clonal Diversity, Antimicrobial Susceptibility and Presence of Genes Encoding Virulence Factors in Staphylococcus aureus Strains Isolated from Cut Wound Infections

• Published in: Current microbiology Vol. 79; no. 5; p. 144
• Main Authors: Kwiatkowski, Paweł, Masiuk, Helena, Pruss, Agata, Łopusiewicz, Łukasz, Sienkiewicz, Monika, Wojciechowska-Koszko, Iwona, Roszkowska, Paulina, Bania, Jacek, Guenther, Sebastian, Dołęgowska, Barbara
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01-05-2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agr protein; Antiinfectives and antibacterials; Antimicrobial agents; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biotechnology; Electrophoresis; Enterotoxins - genetics; Gel electrophoresis; Gene distribution; Genes; Genotypes; Humans; Life Sciences; Microbiology; Penicillin; Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis; Staphylococcal enterotoxin A; Staphylococcal Infections; Staphylococcus aureus; Staphylococcus infections; Strains (organisms); Susceptibility; Virulence; Virulence factors; Virulence Factors - genetics; Wound Infection; Wounds
• ISSN: 0343-8651; 1432-0991
• DOI: 10.1007/s00284-022-02835-3

The aim of the study was to evaluate the clonal relatedness and antimicrobial susceptibility in 52
Staphylococcus aureus
strains isolated from cut wound infections in non-related community patients and to determine the presence of selected virulence genes. To analyse the clonal relatedness of investigated strains, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) of macrorestricted DNA fragments was conducted. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed using the AST-P644 card in the VITEK 2 Compact system. All strains were tested for the presence of selected virulence genes using Single and Multiplex PCR. All isolates were classified into 15 PFGE genotypes and seven unique patterns. The vast majority of investigated
S. aureus
strains were susceptible to all tested antimicrobial agents. Among examined
S. aureus
strains
,
24 combinations of virulence factors were identified. 62.5% of
S. aureus
strains contained various
egc
types, alone or together with other staphylococcal enterotoxin genes. A high percentage (86.5%) of isolates harboured superantigen genes. The most frequent enterotoxin gene identified was encoding for
sep
. All
S. aureus
strains were classified as
agr
-positive, and the most frequent
agr
gene was
agr-1
. Our results indicate that all examined strains isolated from cut wound infections demonstrated high clonal diversity, diversified gene distribution and good susceptibility to antimicrobial agents.