Abstract
A methicillin-resistant Macrococcus isolate from canine otitis, H889678/16/1, was whole-genome sequenced using HiSeq technology to identify the species, antimicrobial resistance determinates and their genomic context. H889678/16/1 belonged to the newly described species Macrococcus bohemicus. It encoded mecB within a novel SCCmec element most similar to that of Macrococcus canis KM45013T. This SCCmecH889678/16/1 element also encoded blaZm and fusC, but no other resistance determinates were found in the H889678/16/1 genome. The ccrA and ccrB recombinase genes within SCCmecH889678/16/1 were distinct from those previously described in staphylococci and macrococci and therefore designated here as ccrAm3 and ccrBm3. Our study represents, to the best of our knowledge, the first description of mecB being encoded by M. bohemicus and of methicillin resistance in this species. Furthermore, the SCCmec described here is highly dissimilar to other such elements and encodes novel ccr genes. Our report demonstrates a wider distribution of mecB among Macrococcus species and expands the genomic context in which mecB may be found. The potential for dissemination of mec genes from Macrococcus to related but more pathogenic Staphylococcus species highlights the need to understand the epidemiology of these genes in macrococci.
Highlights
The genus Macrococcus is closely related to Staphylococcus and consists of eleven species typically found as commensals in a range of animal hosts [1]
M. caseolyticus has been isolated from mastitis in dairy cattle [2,3], canine dermatitis [4], canine otitis [2], an outbreak high-mortality systemic infection in broiler chickens [5], ovine abscesses [6] and cases of embryo mortality in greater white-fronted geese (Anser albifrons) [7]
Macrococcus canis has been isolated from a range of canine infections [4] and a small number of isolates of different Macrococcus species have come from human clinical samples, suggesting a potential role, albeit infrequently, in human infections as well [8]
Summary
The genus Macrococcus is closely related to Staphylococcus and consists of eleven species typically found as commensals in a range of animal hosts [1]. Antibiotics 2020, 9, 590 there has been a single report of a human isolate of Staphylococcus aureus encoding mecB [17] on a plasmid almost identical to a M. canis plasmid encoding mecB [14] This raises the strong possibility of the exchange of methicillin resistance determinates between these two genera and highlights the need to better understand the epidemiology and genomics of mec genes among Macrococcus. To the best of our knowledge, no mec gene or methicillin resistance has been described in M. bohemicus, and we describe the first example of such, a canine otitis isolate H889678/16/1 encoding mecB within a distant SCCmec element and carrying novel ccrA and ccrB alleles, designated here as ccrAm3 and ccrBm3
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