A Comparative Assessment of Ribosomal DNA Polymorphisms in Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) Epidemiology

• Published in: African journal of biomedical research Vol. 10; no. 2
• Main Authors: Terry Alli, O.A, Akinloye, O, Rowley, D.A, Butcher, Philip D
• Format: Journal Article
• Published: Nigeria Ibadan Biomedical Communications Group 06.08.2009
• Subjects: antibiogram; biotyping; MRSA; phage typing; plasmid profile analysis; rDNA polymorphism
• ISSN: 1119-5096

Chromosomal DNA from 19 strains of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) which included 13 strains from different geographical locations in England and 6 strains from St George's Hospital (SGH), London, with MRSA NCTC 119040 and Oxford S. aureus were digested with the restriction endonucleases, HindIII and HaeIII. Southern blot hybridisation was carried out on the DNA digests transferred onto membrane using radioactive probe prepared from 16S and 23S rRNA from Escherichia coli . The pattern of bands which depended on restriction fragment length polymorphisms was used as a measure of minor genomic variation within the MRSA strains. Phage typing, biotyping, antibiogram, and plasmid profile analysis were also carried out on all the strains for comparison. Four and five different patterns were obtained for HindIII and HaeIII, respectively for representative isolates from different geographical locations in England for that year. Three different patterns were identified among the MRSA strains from SGH, London, using HaeIII. None of the epidemiological markers used in this study gave results that correlated with each other. Ribosomal DNA polymorphisms have proved to be a very useful technique for studying the epidemiology of MRSA in hospitals when used along with other epidemiological markers.