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Novel Polymorphisms in mec Genes and a New mec Complex Type in Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Isolates Obtained in Rural Wisconsin.
Sanjay K. Shukla, 2004.We determined allelic polymorphisms in the mec complexes of 524 methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates by partial or complete sequencing of three mec genes, mecA, mecI, and mecR1 . The isolates had been collected over a 10-year period from patients living in rural Wisconsin, where the use of antibiotics was expected to be lower than in the bigger cities . Of the 18 mutation types identified, 16 had not been described previously . The five most common mutations were a mutation 7 nucleotides (nt) upstream from the start site (G T) in the mecA promoter (34.7%), an E246G change encoded by mecA (2.2%), a cytosine insertion at codon 257 in mecA (13.2%), an N121K change encoded by mecI (7.8%), and a major mecI-mecR1 deletion designated as a class B1 mec complex deletion type (25.4%) . There was a high degree of conservation of the amino acid sequence of MecR1 . Strains with the same mutations had variable resistance to oxacillin, and the median MIC for isolates that harbored the 7-nt-upstream mutation was lower than that for strains harboring other mutations . Our data suggest that the mecA promoter mutation plays a more important role in determining methicillin resistance than mutations in mecI and mecA do . Eighty-five percent of the tested isolates (n = 148) with the mecA promoter mutation and the class B1 mec complex deletion belonged to the same major clonal group, identified as MCG-2, and harbored the type IV staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec DNA . There was also a wide range of oxacillin MICs for strains with wild-type mecA, mecI, and mecR1 sequences, suggesting that the genetic backgrounds of clinical strains are significant in determining susceptibility to methicillin .
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