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Abstract Community-onset methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CO-MRSA) is a causative agent of intractable skin infections. In general, clinical symptoms of hospital outpatients with skin infections are severer than those of clinic patients. Hence, molecular epidemiological features of the CO-MRSA strains from hospital outpatients are predicted to be different from those of clinic patients. Here, we conducted a comparative analysis for CO-MRSA isolates from outpatients with impetigo in hospitals and clinics located in the same district of Tokyo, Japan. Incidence of MRSA infection was higher in hospital outpatients (21.5%, 20/93 isolates) than in clinic patients (14.5%, 121/845 isolates). The resistance rate to clindamycin, which is a common topical antimicrobial agent in dermatology, in the isolates from hospital outpatients (60.0%) was higher than those from clinic patients (31.4%). Proportion of the staphylococcal cassette chromosome (SCC) mec type II, which is a representative type of hospital-acquired MRSA in Japan, in the isolates from hospital outpatients (65.0%) was significantly higher than those from clinic patients (30.6%) (P < 0.01). Multilocus sequence typing showed that the clonal complex 89-SCC mec type II (CC89-II) clone, which exhibits clindamycin resistance, was the most predominant (55.0%) in the isolates from hospital outpatients. On the other hand, all CC8-IV, CC121-V, and CC89-V clones accounted for 60% in clinic patients were susceptible to clindamycin. Our findings suggested that the clindamycin-resistant CC89-II CO-MRSA clone might be more related to skin infections in hospital outpatients than clinic patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Employing retrograde transsynaptic transport of rabies virus, we investigated the organization of basal ganglia inputs to hindlimb, proximal and distal forelimb, and orofacial representations of the macaque primary motor cortex (MI). Four days after rabies injections into these MI regions, neuronal labeling occurred in the striatum and the subthalamic nucleus (STN) through the cortico-basal ganglia loop circuits. In the striatum, two distinct sets of the labeling were observed: one in the dorsal putamen, and the other in the ventral striatum (ventromedial putamen and nucleus accumbens). The dorsal striatal labeling was somatotopically arranged and its distribution pattern was in good accordance with that of the corticostriatal inputs, such that the hindlimb, orofacial, or forelimb area was located in the dorsal, ventral, or intermediate zone of the putamen, respectively. The distribution pattern of the ventral striatal labeling was essentially the same in all cases. In the STN, the somatotopic arrangement of labeled neurons was in register with that of corticosubthalamic inputs. The present results suggest that the cortico-basal ganglia motor circuits involving the dorsal putamen and the STN may constitute separate closed loops based on the somatotopy, while the ventral striatum provides common multisynaptic projections to all body-part representations in the MI. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]