Authors: N Giormezis F Kolonitsiou A Makri A Vogiatzi M Christofidou E D Anastassiou I Spiliopoulou
Publish Date: 2014/12/04
Volume: 34, Issue: 4, Pages: 773-778
Abstract
Staphylococcus lugdunensis has emerged as a significant human pathogen with distinct clinical and microbiological characteristics Our goal was to identify the virulence factors in S lugdunensis recovered from infected patients of two Greek hospitals during a sixyear period 2008–2013 A collection of 38 S lugdunensis was tested for biofilm formation antimicrobial susceptibility clonal distribution virulence factors ica operon fbl atlL vwbl slush and antibiotic resistance genes mecA ermC carriage Strains were classified into pulsotypes by pulsedfield gel electrophoresis PFGE of SmaI DNA digests The majority 22 was isolated from skin and soft tissue infections SSTIs nine from deepsited infections DSIs including three bacteraemias and seven from prosthetic deviceassociated infections PDAIs All isolates were oxacillinsusceptible mecAnegative and fblpositive The highest resistance rate was detected for ampicillin 50 followed by erythromycin and clindamycin 184 Fourteen isolates 368 produced biofilm whereas 26/38 684 carried the ica operon Biofilm formation was more frequent in isolates from PDAIs Thirtysix strains 947 carried atlL and 31 816 carried vwbl whereas slush was detected in 15 395 PFGE revealed a low level of genetic diversity strains were classified into seven pulsotypes with two major clones C 22 and D nine strains Type C strains recovered from all infection sites prevailed in biofilm formation and ermC carriage whereas type D strains associated with SSTIs and DSIs carried more frequently vwbl slush or both genes Despite susceptibility to antimicrobials the clonal expansion and carriage of virulence factors combined with biofilmproducing ability render this species an important pathogen that should not be ignoredWe thank Anastasia Spiliopoulou MD PhD for her assistance in collecting the isolates The Ethics Committee of the University Hospital of Patras approved this study and waived the need for informed consent approval no 316 Part of this work was presented as a poster presentation at the 24th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases ECCMID 2014 May 2014 Barcelona Spain
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