Phenotypic and Genotypic Characterization of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Methicillin-Susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) from Different Sources in China

Abstract A diverse collection of 261 Staphylococcus aureus strains from human, animal, food, and environmental sources were tested for the presence and type of SCCmec elements, antibiotic susceptibility to various antibiotics, and non-s-lactam antibiotic resistance genes. About 18.39% (48/261) of strains were methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) including 29.75% (36/121) human strains of which 29 strains were hospital-acquired MRSA (HA-MRSA) and 7 strains were community-associated MRSA (CA-MRSA) and 19.67% (12/61) animal strains that all were CA-MRSA strains. The percentage of CA-MRSA strains from animals was significantly higher than that from human (p<0.01). Most of MRSA strains and a part of methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) strains harbored unique combinations of non-s-lactamase genes aac(6′)/aph(2″), aph(3′)-III, ant (4′,4″), ermA, ermC, mrsA, tetM, and tetK. Antibiotic resistance genes were detected more frequently in HA-MRSA strains than in CA-MRSA strains (p<0.01). MRSA strains and MSSA s...