New Method for Typing Staphylococcus aureus Strains: Multiple-Locus Variable-Number Tandem Repeat Analysis of Polymorphism and Genetic Relationships of Clinical Isolates

Abstract

The PCR-based methodology applied to multiple-locus variable numbers of tandem repeat (VNTR) analysis was recently shown to be a useful technique for the molecular typing of clinical isolates of several bacterial species. We have adopted this method for the molecular typing of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus . Five staphylococcal VNTR loci ( sdr , clfA , clfB , ssp , and spa ) were subjected to analysis, and it was shown that the method allows typing of S . aureus strains with the discriminatory power and reproducibility of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis while at the same time being rapid and applicable to analysis of large numbers of isolates.