Clonal analysis of Staphylococcus epidermidis isolates carrying or lacking biofilm-mediating genes by multilocus sequence typing.

ABSTRACT: Staphylococcus epidermidis is part of the normal microflora of the human skin but is also a leading cause of device-associated infections in critically ill patients. Commensal and clinical S. epidermidis isolates differ in their ability to form biofilms on medical devices; the synthesis of biofilms is mediated by the icaADBC operon. Currently, the epidemiological relatedness between ica-positive and -negative isolates is not known; neither is it known whether the ica genes can spread to biofilm-negative strains through horizontal gene transfer. In this study, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) was employed for the clonal analysis of 118 S. epidermidis ica-positive and -negative strains. MLST revealed that the majority of ica-positive and -negative strains were closely related and formed a s

SUBMITTER: Kozitskaya S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1234069 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature