Affiliation:
1. Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University, 30-387 Cracow, Poland
2. National Institute of Public Health, 00-725 Warsaw, Poland
3. Department of Pathology, Hershey Medical Center, P.O. Box 850, Hershey, Pennsylvania 17033
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Multiple-locus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis (MLVA), a new PCR-based method of typing
Staphylococcus aureus
, was compared to pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE),
spa
typing, and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) on a group of 59
S. aureus
(mostly methicillin-resistant) clinical isolates. The aim of the study was to establish possible criteria of clustering MLVA patterns and to check concordance levels between the results produced by MLVA and the three other typing methods. As in our earlier study, MLVA turned out to have discriminatory power similar to that of PFGE. Comparison of data obtained by the two approaches allowed us to propose a 70% or ca. 80% cutoff value of the similarity between two MLVA patterns, depending on a cutoff level applied to interpret the PFGE results, 75% or ca. 90%, respectively. The cutoff values corresponded to the difference of up to six or four bands, respectively, among maximum 14 bands in total produced by two isolates in the analysis. The MLVA clusters matched well those obtained by PFGE, and they were also consistent in general with clusters generated by
spa
typing and MLST, these latter methods characterized lower resolution. Our results suggest that MLVA may be reliable in shorter-term
S. aureus
epidemiological studies, including analyses of outbreaks and hospital-to-hospital strain transmission events. Well-known advantages of typing methods based on PCR (low cost, short time, and easiness of performance) make MLVA a method that may be useful in a variety of laboratories, including those performing routine microbiological analyses within medical centers.
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Cited by
136 articles.
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