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JAC Advance Access published online on January 6, 2003
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, doi:10.1093/jac/dkg036
© 2003 by The British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy
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© 2003 The British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy

Original article

Physiological and molecular analysis of a mecA-negative Staphylococcus aureus clinical strain that expresses heterogeneous methicillin resistance

Reiko Yoshida 1, Kyoko Kuwahara-Arai 1, Tadashi Baba 1, Longzhu Cui 1, Judith F. Richardson 2, Keiichi Hiramatsu 1*

1 Department of Bacteriology, Juntendo University, 2-1-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113, Japan
2 Central Public Health Laboratory, London, UK

* Corresponding author. E-mail: hiram{at}juntendo.ac.jp.

Received 24 January 2002 ; revised 22 July 2002 ; accepted 14 October 2002

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus clinical isolate 61/5896 exhibited methicillin resistance (MIC 64 mg/L), but lacked mecA, which encodes penicillin-binding protein 2'. The strain was isolated in England in 1961, and exhibited unstable heterogeneous methicillin resistance. When cultivated in drug-free medium, the methicillin resistance of 61/5896 increased after three daily passages, then decreased and was completely lost after 12 days' passage. Electron microscopy revealed that strain 61/5896 had a thicker and rougher cell wall than its methicillin-susceptible derivatives. It produced about three times more penicillin-binding protein 2 (PBP2) than methicillin-susceptible derivatives. The strain was characteristically a non-producer of autolytic enzyme, though the phenotype, which was lost easily, was not directly correlated with methicillin resistance.

Keywords: PBP2, PBP2', mecA, MRSA, autolysis
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