AAC
Home Help [Feedback] [For Subscribers] [Archive] [Search] [Contents]
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Other Versions of this Article:
AAC.00978-06v1
51/5/1671    most recent
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Hanssen, A.-M.
Right arrow Articles by Sollid, J. U. E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Hanssen, A.-M.
Right arrow Articles by Sollid, J. U. E.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, May 2007, p. 1671-1677, Vol. 51, No. 5
0066-4804/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AAC.00978-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Multiple Staphylococcal Cassette Chromosomes and Allelic Variants of Cassette Chromosome Recombinases in Staphylococcus aureus and Coagulase-Negative Staphylococci from Norway{triangledown}

Anne-Merethe Hanssen* and Johanna U. Ericson Sollid

Department for Microbiology and Virology, Institute of Medical Biology, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway

Received 7 August 2006/ Returned for modification 30 October 2006/ Accepted 7 February 2007

We investigated the nature of the staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) elements and cognate insertion sites in a collection of 42 clinical staphylococcal isolates of various species from Norway. The ccr and mec genes and the attachment sites (attL/attR) were identified by PCR, Southern blot hybridization, and DNA sequencing. We found 10 possibly new SCCmec types and one previously unreported variant of SCCmec type III (mec complex A, ccrAB3, and ccrC7) in Staphylococcus epidermidis, Staphylococcus haemolyticus, and Staphylococcus hominis. Eleven of 42 strains contained multiple copies of ccr, suggesting the presence of mosaic structures composed of multiple SCC elements. S. haemolyticus contained ccrAB2 genes identical to those in S. aureus SCCmec type IV but lacked IS1272 and mec regulators. Two new allelic ccr variants, ccrC6 and ccrC7, were identified. Also, the presumed functional version of ccrB1 was found in a mecA-positive S. hominis strain and in mecA-negative S. epidermidis and S. hominis strains. Only minor differences in direct repeats in the left and right boundaries (attR/attL) were observed, while there was more variation in the inverted repeats. Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) contained several representatives of different ccr complexes and thus seemed to harbor multiple or composite new types of SCCmec. The enormous diversity observed in the SCCmec elements implies a large SCCmec reservoir in CoNS.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbiology and Virology, Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Medical Biology, University of Tromsø, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway. Phone: 47 77 64 57 52. Fax: 47 77 64 53 50. E-mail: annemh{at}fagmed.uit.no

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 16 February 2007.

Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, May 2007, p. 1671-1677, Vol. 51, No. 5
0066-4804/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AAC.00978-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:



Home Help [Feedback] [For Subscribers] [Archive] [Search] [Contents]
Clin. Vaccine Immunol. Clin. Microbiol. Rev.
J. Clin. Microbiol. ALL ASM JOURNALS

Copyright © 2007 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.