MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS STRAINS ISOLATED FROM INFECTIVE ENDOCARDITIS

Abstract

Infective endocarditis (IE) is an infection of the heart endothelium and valves and is frequently a consequence of a sanguine flow turbulence and injury of endocardium. Recent studies revealed an increase of Staphylococcus aureus strains involved in IE, but no evident correlations between the genetic background of this bacterium and IE involvement of certain strains have been found yet. In this study we analyzed the virulence profile, including adhesins, exotoxins, superantigens and biofilm determinants, along with agr type detection, for S. aureus strains isolated from IE, versus non-IE originating strains. We performed also bacterial typing (SCCmec typing, spa-typing and MLST typing), in order to compare our strains with international databases repositories. Although the study was carried out on a reduced number of isolates, our observations confirm the previous works, showing that no major differences were observed between the genetic backgrounds of the two groups of strains analyzed. Notably, the added value of this study was optimization of two new multiplex PCR protocols, and the enrichment of international databases with three new spa-types, three new MLST alleles and four new MLST sequence types.