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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

J. C. Roberts, College of Public Health, University of South Florida, USF Center for Biological Defense, 3602 Spectrum Blvd, Tampa, FL 33612, (813)974-3429, jrinsky@asph.org

Staphylococcus aureus is one of the leading causes of hospital and community-acquired infections. A number of recent studies have described outbreaks of disease caused by epidemic clones of community-acquired methicillin-resistant S. aureus (CA-MRSA). Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) is considered the gold standard for molecular typing of MRSAs, and has been applied to a variety of epidemiological studies. However, a national database for the comparison of PFGE patterns does not exist for S. aureus. We hypothesis that such a database will be useful not only for tracking strains involved in outbreaks, but also to demonstrate associations between specific isolates and the diseases. A total of 314 CA-MRSA isolates were characterized by PFGE using SmaI digestion. CA-MRSA isolates used in this study were obtained from Florida or Washington state. Data was analyzed using BioNumerics® and utilizing the epidemic isolates, pulsotypes USA100-800 as controls. Analysis of the isolates demonstrated that USA100, USA300, and USA400 are present among our isolates. This study demonstrated for the first time the presence of USA300, a strain associated with nationwide outbreaks, in Florida and Washington. Similar to recent studies, we found that the majority of our wound isolates were USA300 pulsotype. We also demonstrated that the majority of strains isolated from nasal swabs possess the USA100 pulsotype. This suggests that this pulsotype may be related to MRSA colonization, but further studies are needed. This study demonstrates the importance of a nationwide PFGE database to track the spread of MRSA.

Learning Objectives:

• NA

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered