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Epidemiologic and Clinical Utility of Typing Systems for Differentiating Among Strains of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2016

Maury E. Mulligan  and
Robert D. Arbeit
Maury E. Mulligan
Affiliation:
Infectious Disease Service, VA Medical Center, Long Beach, California and the Department of Medicine, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California
Robert D. Arbeit*
Affiliation:
Research Service, VA Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts and the Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts
*
Research Service (151), VA Medical Center, 150 S. Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02130
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Abstract

Typing systems for differentiating among strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can be valuable tools for the epidemiologist and the clinician. Specific criteria for evaluating such systems are typeability, reproducibility, and discriminatory power. An ideal typing system also would be rapid, inexpensive, technically simple, and readily available. Systems based on the detection of phenotypic variations include antimicrobial susceptibility testing, bacteriophage typing, multilocus enzyme electrophoresis, and electrophoretic methods such as protein eletrophoresis and immunoblotting. Systems that directly detect genotypic variations include plasmid profile analysis, restriction enzyme analysis of plasmid DNA, restriction enzyme analysis of chromosomal DNA, Southern blot analysis of specific restriction fragment length polymorphisms, and pulse field gel electrophoresis. in general, the more widely available typing systems based on phenotypic assays and plasmid analysis have limitations in typeability and/or discriminatory power.The chromosomal DNA-based techniques, although promising, are unproven approaches still under active investigation.

Information

Type
Original Articles
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , January 1991 , pp. 20 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1991 

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