A Genotypic Comparison of Staphylococcus lugdunensis Clinical Isolates of Diverse Geographic Origin

At the present time, little is known about the newly described coagulase negative staphylococcus, Staphylococcus lagdunensis. However, this organism has been associated with serious invasive infections and can easily be mistaken for Staphylococcus aureus both clinically and phenotypically. To learn more about the persistence and spread of this organism, the epidemiological relatedness of fifty-one Staphylococcus lugdunensis isolates from various geographic regions was assessed using molecular typing methods, specifically, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), arbitrarily primed polymerase chain reaction (AP-PCR), inter repetitive sequence polymerase chain reaction (REP-PCR), and southern hybridization.|PFGE together with southern hybridization data proved superior to both types of PCR based methods. PFGE produced distinct banding patterns that were easily interpreted both visually and with Molecular Analyst software. Southern hybridizations supported the PFGE data and were of great value in this investigation. Although REP- PCR divided the isolates into more groups, the banding patterns were not distinct and proved difficult to interpret. AP-PCR failed to produce enough bands for any interpretation to be conducted. This comparison of several typing methods revealed a surprising degree of genomic conservation in the organism despite the different geographic origins of the isolates. The results of this study provide new insight into S. lugdunensis epidemiology and illustrate the value of typing methods in the investigation of this organism.

Grantor dc:publisher

Creighton University

Year dc:date.issued

2001

Author dc:creator

• Fincham, Megan A.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Goering, Richard V.

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright is retained by the Author. A non-exclusive distribution right is granted to Creighton University and to ProQuest following the publishing model selected above.

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/64796

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:cdr.creighton.edu:10504/64796