Abstract
Background. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) Clonal Complex 59 (CC59) clone has spread among Chinese children, resulting in many Staphylococcus aureus infections. α-hemolysin (Hlα) is an important virulence factor of Staphylococcus aureus, but little research has been done on CC59 isolates with negative α-hemolysis. Results. During the 4 periods (2009-2011, 2012-2013, 2016, 2017), 291 MRSA isolates were collected. Isolates with β and δ hemolysis accounted for 60.47% among the MRSA isolates in 2009-2011; 56.41% in 2012-2013; 77.14% in 2016; and 56.25% in 2017. most ST59 isolates (94.38%), 9 ST338 isolates (100%) showed β and δ hemolysis, both ST59 and ST338 clone belong to CC59 clone. Twenty-two ST239 isolates (73.33%), 8 ST88 isolates (80%), 4 ST5 isolates (100%), 13 ST22 isolates (92.86%) and 6 ST398 isolates (85.71%) showed α and δ hemolysis. α hemolysin in most clinical isolates is highly conservative, each showed one amino acid locus variation, the most common mutation was threonine at position 275 instead of isoleucine, then glutamic acid replaced aspartic acid at 208. Seventeen ST59 and 2 ST338 isolates had no mutation, 3 ST59 isolates showed single mutation (C448G), and only one ST59 isolate showed multilocus mutation. Other ST typing, such as ST1, ST5, ST88, ST20, ST239 and ST398, all had multilocus mutations, sites were from 3 to 8, no conservative sequence was found among isolates with the same ST typing. The carrying rates of RNA III, Rot, agrA, SarR, SarU and SigB were all over 93%, the carrying rates of SarZ and SarA genes were 41.86% and 34.88% respectively. Trancriptional levels of hlα in isolates showed α and δ hemolysis and β and δ hemolysis were equal. USA300 and R23 produced Hlα, R23 didn’t showed α hemolysis phenotype.Conclusions. Most clinical CC59 isolates from children in China were α hemolysis negative. There was no statistically significant difference in hlα gene and RNA expression, they produced the protein. The reason for the phenotypic deletion probably related to β hemolysin (Hlβ).
Two dimensional electrophoresis of the exo-proteome produced from community acquired methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus belonging to clonal complex 80
