Multilocus sequence typing of Staphylococcus aureus isolates recovered from cows with mastitis in Brazilian dairy herds

Staphylococcus aureus is a major pathogen associated with bovine mastitis, one of the most important infectious diseases occurring in dairy cattle herds worldwide. In the present study, S. aureus isolates recovered from cows with mastitis in dairy herds located in the south-east of Brazil were genotyped by PFGE and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). PFGE identified 60 pulsotypes (PTs), which were found to be distributed among six clonal complexes (CCs) by MLST. All PTs with similarity percentages greater than 65 % belonged to the same CC. Most of the PTs belonged to CC126 (n=28) and CC97 (n=19), which were represented by 91 % of the isolates. These CCs have also been recovered from cows with mastitis in countries located in different continents, but they have rarely been isolated from human specimens. Few isolates were represented by PTs belonging to CCs that are frequently isolated from human specimens (CC1, CC5 and CC30). These data reinforce the hypothesis that a limited number of S. aureus CCs are responsible for most bovine mastitis cases internationally. Specific features of the specialized clones should be studied for use as future targets of mastitis control measures.