An Assessment Upon Various Improvements of Rapid Genotyping Techniques For Mrsa: Developing a Rapid and Cost-effective MRSA Genotyping Strategy

Abstract

Methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is an important human pathogen that isendemic in hospitals all over the world. It has more recently emerged as aserious threat to the general public in the form of community-acquired MRSA.MRSA has been implicated in a wide variety of diseases, ranging from skininfections and food poisoning to more severe and potentially fatal conditions,including; endocarditis, septicaemia and necrotising pneumonia. Treatment ofMRSA disease is complicated and can be unsuccessful due to the bacterium'sremarkable ability to develop antibiotic resistance. The considerable economic and public health burden imposed by MRSA hasfuelled attempts by researchers to understand the evolution of virulent andantibiotic resistant strains and thereby improve epidemiological managementstrategies. Central to MRSA transmission management strategies is theimplementation of active surveillance programs, via which unique geneticfingerprints, or genotypes, of each strain can be identified. Despite numerousadvances in MRSA genotyping methodology, there remains a need for a rapid,reproducible, cost-effective method that is capable of producing a high levelof genotype discrimination, whilst being suitable for high throughput use.Consequently, the fundamental aim of this paper was to develop a novel MRSAgenotyping strategy incorporating these benefits. A comprehensive MRSA genotyping strategy requires characterization of theclonal background as well as interrogation of the hypervariable StaphylococcalCassette Chromosome mec (SCCmec) that carries the p-lactamresistance gene, mecA.