Good Performance of the SpectraCell RA System for Typing of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Isolates

Abstract

Typing of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) remains necessary in order to assess whether transmission of MRSA occurred and to what extent infection prevention measures need to be taken. Raman spectroscopy (SpectraCellRA [SCRA]; RiverD International, Rotterdam, The Netherlands) is a recently developed tool for bacterial typing. In this study, the performance (typeability, discriminatory power, reproducibility, workflow, and costs) of the SCRA system was evaluated for typing of MRSA strains isolated from patients and patients' household members who were infected with or colonized by MRSA. We analyzed a well-documented collection of 113 MRSA strains collected from 54 households. The epidemiological relationship between the MRSA strains within one household was used as the gold standard. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was used for discrepancy analysis. The results of SCRA analysis on the strain level corresponded with epidemiological data for 108 of 113 strains, a concordance of 95.6%. When analyzed at the household level, the results of SCRA were correct for 49 out of 54 households, a concordance of 90.7%. Concordance on the strain level with epidemiological data for PFGE was 93.6% (103/110 isolates typed). Concordance on the household level with epidemiological data for PFGE was 93.5% (49/53 households analyzed). With PFGE regarded as the reference standard, the conclusions reached with Raman spectroscopy were identical to those reached with PFGE in 100 of 105 cases (95.2%). The reproducibility of SCRA was found to be 100%. We conclude that the SpectraCellRA system is a fast, easy-to-use, and highly reproducible typing platform for outbreak analysis that can compete with the currently used typing techniques.

Characterisation of clinical Staphylococcus aureus isolates harbouring mecA or Panton–Valentine leukocidin genes from four tertiary care hospitals in Indonesia

“…These discrepancies are not unexpected given the different technical background of the two typing methods. In previous reports, we and others found Raman typing to produce results that were >95% concordant with PFGE, the gold standard for assigning staphylococci to genetic clones. Discrepancies remained, however, albeit at a low rate.…”

“…The clonal relationship among MRSA and PVL‐positive MSSA isolates was analysed using Raman spectroscopy (SpectraCell RA Bacterial Strain Analyzer, RiverD international BV, Rotterdam, The Netherlands), as previously described ; ; .…”

Epidemiology of Staphylococcus aureus Harboring the mecA or Panton-Valentine Leukocidin Genes in Hospitals in Java and Bali, Indonesia

“…The carriage rate among surgery patients screened at discharge was highest in the two hospitals on the island of Java, i.e., 8 ; this clone is notable for causing prolonged epidemics that are difficult to control in hospitals worldwide, and it is the dominant sequence type in Asia. Raman spectroscopy, a method that attains 95.2% concordance with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, 25 sub-divided isolates belonging to this clone into several sub-clones or RTs, of which RT 24 was the most common. This RT 24 was not only carried by discharge patients but also by contact patients, and contaminated and persisted in a surgical ward of the Semarang hospital over a 14-month period.…”

“…We performed Raman spectroscopy (SpectraCellRA Bacterial Strain Analyzer, RiverD international BV, Rotterdam, The Netherlands) to assess clonal relationship among MRSA and PVL-positive MSSA isolates, as described previously. 25,26 The American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) strains were included on each measurement day as a control for reproducibility. The analysis of spectra was performed using SpectraCellRA software version 1.9.0.13444:24 (RiverD international).…”

A Low Redundancy and High Coverage Node Scheduling Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

“…With the rapid development of wireless communications and sensor technology, Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), the core technology of the internet of things, has become a hot research topic [1][2][3][4][5]. A typical WSN which consists of a large number of sensor nodes is able to collect and send information within a monitoring area [6].…”