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JAC Advance Access originally published online on March 19, 2009
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 2009 63(5):877-885; doi:10.1093/jac/dkp089
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Original research

StaphVar-DNA microarray analysis of accessory genome elements of community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus

F. El Garch1,{dagger},{ddagger}, M. Hallin1,*,{ddagger}, R. De Mendonça1, O. Denis1, A. Lefort2 and M. J. Struelens1

1 Laboratoire de Référence MRSA-Staphylocoques, Service de Microbiologie, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Hôpital Erasme, Brussels, Belgium 2 IRIBHN, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

Received 2 December 2008; returned 20 January 2009; revised 12 February 2009; accepted 20 February 2009

* Corresponding author. Service de Microbiologie, Hôpital Erasme, 808, route de Lennik, 1070 Brussels, Belgium. Tel: +32-2-555-34-84; Fax: +32-2-555-31-10; E-mail: mahallin{at}ulb.ac.be

Objectives: Approximately 75% of the genome of Staphylococcus aureus (the ‘core’ genome) is highly conserved between strains, whereas the remaining 25% (the ‘accessory’ genome) is composed of mobile genetic elements (MGEs), containing virulence and resistance genes. We developed a composite microarray focused on resistance and virulence genes located on the accessory or core-variable genome to characterize a collection of Belgian community-acquired methicillin-resistant S. aureus (CA-MRSA) strains.

Methods: Oligonucleotide probes targeting 403 genes encoding antimicrobial resistance (35%), virulence (28%) and adhesion (31%) factors were designed among eight S. aureus sequenced genomes. The StaphVar Array was validated by testing five of the strains used for the design and utilized to characterize 13 CA-MRSA strains representative of the multilocus sequence typing (MLST) sequence types circulating in Belgium.

Results: Analysis of the gene content of the five reference strains by the StaphVar Array matched 90% to 97% of the theoretical results. Analysis of CA-MRSA strains showed that 54.4% of the genes tested were strain-dependent. Strains presented specific exotoxin, enterotoxin, cytolysin and adhesin gene profiles by MLST lineage. One exception to these ‘lineage-specific’ profiles was the variable presence of the arginine catabolic mobile element (characteristic of the USA300 clone) within ST8 strains.

Conclusions: The StaphVar Array enables the characterization of ~400 variable resistance and virulence determinants in S. aureus. CA-MRSA strains displayed extensive diversity in virulence and resistance profiles. The presence of the USA300 clone in Belgium was confirmed. Although mainly located on MGEs, associations of virulence genes were highly conserved within strains of the same MLST lineage.

Keywords: S. aureus , virulence , resistance , epidemiology

{dagger} Present address. Unité de Pharmacologie Cellulaire et Moléculaire, Université Catholique de Louvain, 73, Avenue E. Mounier, 1200 Brussels, Belgium.

{ddagger} These authors contributed equally to this work.


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