Characterization of 26 isolates of Staphylococcus aureus, predominantly from dairy sheep, using four different techniques of molecular epidemiology.

Little information is available regarding the molecular epidemiology of Staphylococcus aureus- induced mastitis in dairy sheep. In this study, 4 different typing techniques were compared in typing 26 S. aureus isolates, predominantly from cases of subclinical mastitis in dairy ewes. The 4 techniques were pulsed- field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) on 2 genes (coagulase and clumping factor B), randomly amplified polymorphic DNA-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (RAPD-PCR), and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). On the basis of discriminatory power as the key parameter of typing systems, MLST and PFGE were found to be the most powerful techniques. The MLST and PFGE could contribute to epidemiological surveillance and evaluation of mastitis control programs, by documenting prev- alence and dissemination of endemic clones in infected populations. The results of this study show that a single clone of S. aureus is widely distributed in infected ewe mammary glands.