Diversity of Prophages, spa, and SCCmec Types in Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Strains Isolated from Burn Patients: A Study in a Referral Burn Hospital in Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Infections with multidrug resistance methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in burn patients are one of the main dilemmas in public health. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of prophages, toxin, and resistance encoding genes. In addition, the analysis of the distribution of different spa types and SCCmec types in MRSA strains which were obtained from burn patients were performed. In the present study, 90 MRSA isolates were obtained from burn patients. The isolates were investigated for susceptibility to antimicrobial agents. The genes encoding for resistance and toxin were detected by using PCR screening. Isolates were typed based on polymorphisms in SCCmec and spa. The isolates were assessed for the existence of different prophage classes by multiplex PCR. Out of 90 MRSA isolates, four of them were confirmed as VISA isolates; which 2 isolates belonged to SCCmec III/t037and the 2 remaining belonged to SCCmec IV/t008. SGA, SGB, SGF, SGFa, SGFb, and SGL proghage type genes were detected in 21.1, 54.4, 92.2, 88.9, 88.9, and 20% of the MRSA strains. The most frequent spa type was t790 (32.2%), followed by t037 (15.6%), t030 and t064 (13.3% each), t008 (6.7%), t084 and t7580 (each 5.6%), t969 (4.4%) and t1339 (3.3%). Our data indicated the presence of different prophage classes and spa type in MRSA strains which were isolated from burn patients; indeed, it could be attained that different prophage classes and spa type could be reservoirs for the spread of bacteriophage encoded agents and a wide range of illnesses.