1. Genetic structure of community acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus USA300
- Author
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Christopher R. Cannavino, Nicholas J. Schork, Eric J. Topol, Vikas Bansal, John S. Bradley, John A. D. Leake, Ali Torkamani, and Ryan Tewhey
- Subjects
Genotyping Techniques ,medicine.disease_cause ,Medical and Health Sciences ,Genotype ,2.2 Factors relating to the physical environment ,Aetiology ,Pathogen ,Genetics ,0303 health sciences ,Molecular Epidemiology ,Genome ,Bacterial ,Staphylococcal Infections ,Biological Sciences ,3. Good health ,Community-Acquired Infections ,Infectious Diseases ,Staphylococcus aureus ,Staphylococcal Skin Infections ,Infection ,Sequence Analysis ,Research Article ,Biotechnology ,Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus ,Bioinformatics ,Virulence ,Biology ,Staphylococcal infections ,Microbiology ,Vaccine Related ,03 medical and health sciences ,Biodefense ,Information and Computing Sciences ,Genetic variation ,medicine ,Humans ,030304 developmental biology ,Molecular epidemiology ,Base Sequence ,030306 microbiology ,Prevention ,Soft Tissue Infections ,Genetic Variation ,Sequence Analysis, DNA ,DNA ,medicine.disease ,Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ,Emerging Infectious Diseases ,Good Health and Well Being ,Haplotypes ,Mutation ,Antimicrobial Resistance ,Genome, Bacterial - Abstract
Background Community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) is a significant bacterial pathogen that poses considerable clinical and public health challenges. The majority of the CA-MRSA disease burden consists of skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI) not associated with significant morbidity; however, CA-MRSA also causes severe, invasive infections resulting in significant morbidity and mortality. The broad range of disease severity may be influenced by bacterial genetic variation. Results We sequenced the complete genomes of 36 CA-MRSA clinical isolates from the predominant North American community acquired clonal type USA300 (18 SSTI and 18 severe infection-associated isolates). While all 36 isolates shared remarkable genetic similarity, we found greater overall time-dependent sequence diversity among SSTI isolates. In addition, pathway analysis of non-synonymous variations revealed increased sequence diversity in the putative virulence genes of SSTI isolates. Conclusions Here we report the first whole genome survey of diverse clinical isolates of the USA300 lineage and describe the evolution of the pathogen over time within a defined geographic area. The results demonstrate the close relatedness of clinically independent CA-MRSA isolates, which carry implications for understanding CA-MRSA epidemiology and combating its spread.
- Published
- 2012