High prevalence of ST121 in community-associated methicillin-susceptible Staphy...

• Author(s): Conceição, T ; Aires-de-Sousa, M ; Pona, N ; Brito, MJ ; Barradas, C ; Coelho, R ; Sardinha, T ; Sancho, L ; Sousa, JG ; Machado, MC ; Lencastre, H
• Date: 2011
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.10/400
• Origin: Repositório do Hospital Prof. Doutor Fernando Fonseca
• Subject(s): Criança; Infecções comunitárias adquiridas; Staphylococcus aureus; Infecções dos tecidos moles; Portugal; Soft tissue infections
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

In order to evaluate the incidence of community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) in Portugal, we analyzed a collection of 38 S. aureus isolates recovered from 30 children attending the pediatric emergency department of a central hospital in Lisbon due to skin and soft tissue infections. Molecular characterization identified seven clonal lineages among the 35 methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) isolates, of which the major lineage PFGE A/t159/ST121 included 63% of the isolates. The three MRSA isolates belonged to the Pediatric clone PFGE D/t535/ST5-IV (n = 2) and to the European CA-MRSA clone PFGE G/t044/ST80-IVc (n = 1). All isolates harbored several virulence factors, namely, leukocidins. Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) was produced by isolates from five MSSA lineages and by the ST80 MRSA. Of interest, this is the first reported isolation of CA-MRSA ST80 in Portugal.