Abstract
Staphylococcus aureus is an important opportunistic pathogen responsible for a variety of diseases. Indiscriminate prescription of antibiotics caused severe antibiotic resistance especially against commonly used drugs. The present investigation was carried out to study the distribution of Panton-Valentine Leukocidin gene, SCCmec types and antibiotic resistance properties of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolated from Iranian hospitals. A total of 132 clinical specimens were collected from two major Iranian hospitals. Samples were cultured and their positive results were subjected to several PCR methods. The patterns of antibiotic resistance were studied using the disk diffusion method. We found that 66 out of 132 samples (50%) were positive for Staphylococcus aureus. The most commonly infected samples were superficial and surgical wounds (66.12%). The incidence of mecA, tetK, ermA, ermC, tetM, aacA-D, linA, msrA, vatA, vatC and vatB antibiotic resistance genes were 80.30%, 34.84%, 30.30%, 25.75%, 24.24%, 19.69%, 7.57%, 7.57%, 6.06%, 3.03% and 1.51%, respectively. Totally, 40.90% of isolates harbored the Panton-Valentine Leukocidin gene. Of 53 mec positive strains, the distribution of SCCmec V, SCCmec III, SCCmec IVa, SCCmec IVc and SCCmec IVb were 28 (52.83%), 13 (24.52%), 6 (11.32%), 4 (7.54%) and 2 (3.77%), respectively. All isolates were resistant to penicillin, cephalothin, cefazoline and ceftriaxone. The high levels of Staphylococcus aureus resistance against commonly used antibiotics as well as high presence of SCCmec types of meticillin-resistant virulent strains of Staphylococcus aureus suggest that infections with these strains require more advanced hospital care with emerging demand for novel antibiotics.
Highlights
The increasing prevalence of bacterial resistance to commonly used antibiotics, may result in an insufficient array of substances to combat some bacterial infections and it is more important in hospitals
Superficial and surgical wounds had the highest incidence of S. aureus (66.12 ), while blood samples had the lowest incidence (15.38 ) (Table 3)
S. aureus isolates of superficial and post surgical wounds and respiratory infections had the highest incidence of antibiotic resistance genes. vatB (1.51 ) and vatC (3.03 ) had the lowest incidence in S. aureus strains
Summary
The increasing prevalence of bacterial resistance to commonly used antibiotics, may result in an insufficient array of substances to combat some bacterial infections and it is more important in hospitals. The bacterium can colonize individuals both in the community and hospital settings [1]. Infections caused by this bacterium are treated mainly with meticillin but in recent years, increasing numbers of meticillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA) strains have been reported worldwide from patients with community-acquired infections [2,3,4]. Submitted: 23 July 2014 / Accepted: 09 September 2014 strains isolated from hospital infections were meticillin resistant [5,6]. S. aureus is the most common cause of skin and soft-tissue infections (such as impetigo, furunculosis, superficial and surgical wounds and abscess), as well as systemic infections (such as pneumonia, urinary tract infections-UTIs and endocarditis) [7,8,9,10,11,12,13]
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