Abstract
Staphylococcus aureus is a commensal gram positive bacteria which causes severe and non severe infections in humans and livestock. In India, ST772 is a dominant and ST672 is an emerging clone of Staphylococcus aureus. Both cause serious human diseases, and carry type V SCCmec elements. The objective of this study was to characterize SCCmec type V elements of ST772 and ST672 because the usual PCR methods did not amplify all primers specific to the type. Whole genome sequencing analysis of seven ST772 and one ST672 S. aureus isolates revealed that the SCCmec elements of six of the ST772 isolates were the smallest of the extant type V elements and in addition have several other novel features. Only one ST772 isolate and the ST672 isolate carried bigger SCCmec cassettes which were composites carrying multiple ccrC genes. These cassettes had some similarities to type V SCCmec element from M013 isolate (ST59) from Taiwan in certain aspects. SCCmec elements of all Indian isolates had an inversion of the mec complex, similar to the bovine SCCmec type X. This study reveals that six out of seven ST772 S. aureus isolates have a novel type V (5C2) SCCmec element while one each of ST772 and ST672 isolates have a composite SCCmec type V element (5C2&5) formed by the integration of type V SCCmec into a MSSA carrying a SCC element, in addition to the mec gene complex inversions and extensive recombinations.
Highlights
Staphylococcus aureus is an important pathogen in hospitals and in communities causing a broad range of infections among both humans and animals
Staphylococcal Cassette Chromosome mec (SCCmec) types I–III are usually carried by hospitalassociated methicillin resistant S. aureus (HA-MRSA) while types IV and V are usually carried by community-associated (CA) MRSA
By identifying the SCCmec regions from whole genome sequences, we have shown that ST772 and ST672 SCCmec elements have novel rearrangements compared to extant type V elements
Summary
Staphylococcus aureus is an important pathogen in hospitals and in communities causing a broad range of infections among both humans and animals. The first isolate to be characterized with SCCmec element V(5C2) containing ccrC was S.aureus strain WBG8318 (WIS) belonging to ST45 from Australia. Many MRSA isolates such as M013 with SCCmec V elements containing two ccrCs, have been identified in various genetic backgrounds and with different ccrC1 alleles [13,14].
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