Hybrid assembly of multi-drug resistant, highly virulent methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus ST772-SCCmec V lineage: Maximising its potential for dissemination similar to USA300 clone.

ST772-SCCmec V is a multi-drug resistant and highly virulent MRSA lineage. The complete genome of VB9352 S. aureus genome was generated using hybrid assembly of ion Torrent reads overlayed with the long reads of minIon. VB9352 was identified with the sequence type ST772 and carried SCCmec V element in the chromosome. The complete genome analysis showed the presence of mosaic integrated resistance plasmid (IRP) element contained loci for beta-lactam resistance operon (blaZ, blaI, blaR), aminoglycosides resistance (aphA3-sat-aadE), macrolide resistance (msrA, mphC), and bacitracin resistant genes (bcrA/B). A prophage Φ-IND772PVL co-carrying PVL and sea was also identified In the isolate VB9352, three distinct pathogenicity islands were identified. This includes vSaα carrying both toxins and superantigens, vSaβ carrying enterotoxin gene cluster (egc) and vSaγ containing super-antigen like protein, alpha hemolysin and exfoliative (eta) toxin. ST772 MRSA genomes carried two copies of blaZ and dfrG genes encoding for beta-lactam and trimethoprim resistance respectively.