Open AccessClonal Analysis of Staphylococcus epidermidis Isolates Carrying or Lacking Biofilm-Mediating Genes by Multilocus Sequence Typing
Author(s) -
Svetlana Kozitskaya,
Michael E. Olson,
Paul D. Fey,
Wolfgang Witte,
Knut Ohlsen,
Wilma Ziebuhr
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of clinical microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.349
H-Index - 255
eISSN - 1070-633X
pISSN - 0095-1137
DOI - 10.1128/jcm.43.9.4751-4757.2005
Subject(s) - multilocus sequence typing , staphylococcus epidermidis , biology , biofilm , microbiology and biotechnology , typing , genetics , operon , clone (java method) , gene , sequence analysis , horizontal gene transfer , genotype , bacteria , staphylococcus aureus , phylogenetics , escherichia coli
Staphylococcus epidermidis is part of the normal microflora of the human skin but is also a leading cause of device-associated infections in critically ill patients. Commensal and clinicalS. epidermidis isolates differ in their ability to form biofilms on medical devices; the synthesis of biofilms is mediated by theicaADBC operon. Currently, the epidemiological relatedness betweenica- positive and -negative isolates is not known; neither is it known whether theica genes can spread to biofilm-negative strains through horizontal gene transfer. In this study, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) was employed for the clonal analysis of 118S. epidermidis ica -positive and -negative strains. MLST revealed that the majority ofica -positive and -negative strains were closely related and formed a single clonal complex. Within this complex one sequence type (ST27) was identified which contained exclusivelyica- positive isolates and represented the majority of clinical strains tested. ST27 and relatedica -positive clones carried different SCCmec cassettes (conferring methicillin resistance) and the insertion sequence IS256 . The findings suggest that theS. epidermidis infections analyzed in this report are mainly caused by a single clone (ST27) which occurs preferentially in hospitals and differs from clones in the community. It is hypothesized that the successful establishment of ST27 within nosocomial environments has been facilitated by the presence of genes encoding biofilm and resistance traits.