Molecular Epidemiology of Methicillin-Resistant and Methicillin-Susceptible Staphylococcus aureus in the Ovine Dairy Chain and in Farm-Related Humans

Abstract

Staphylococcus aureus is a major cause of clinical infections in humans and its enterotoxins cause foodborne disease. In the present study, we tested a total of 51 isolates of S. aureus from small-ruminant dairy farms with artisan dairy facilities, all located in Latium, Italy. The farms have a known history of a high prevalence of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). Most of the MRSA isolates (27 of 51) belonged to spa-type t127 (43.1%), followed by t2678 (3.9%), t044 (2%), t1166 (2%), and t1773 (2%). PFGE performed on mecA positive strains identified one cluster (≥ 80% of similarity), comprising 22 MRSA. Nine of twenty-two MRSA isolates were assigned human host origin, and 13 isolates did not belong to a specific host. During the characterization study, one strain isolated from bulk tank milk samples harbored the pvl gene; the strain was not enterotoxigenic with a non-specific host according to the biotyping scheme, highlighting the possible emerging risk of transmission of bacterial virulence factors by foods, the environment, and foodhandlers. These findings stress the importance of hygienic measures at all processing steps of the food production chain and underline that monitoring for the presence of MRSA throughout the food chain is essential for public health.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in veterinary professionals in 2017 in the Czech Republic

“…MRSA carriage or infections were described mostly in farm animals, such as pigs [19], cattle [20], sheep [21], horses [22] or poultry [23]. Transmission to humans has been documented, mostly after prolonged, repeated and close contact with a colonized animal [24] or through a contaminated vehicle such as meat [25] or dairy products [26].…”

Fatal case of ST8/SCCmecIVl community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection in Japan

“…Divergent lineages of CA-MRSA dominate different regions of the world, although USA300 is the most successful clone worldwide [1] , [2] , [4] , [5] , [6] . Other examples include those from livestock, food production chains and farm-related humans in Europe (such as spa t127) [30] ; USA500 (CC8) from CA and HA infections in the United States [31] ; and ST8/ spa t008/SCC mec IVe, which often displays levofloxacin resistance and a 1 Mbp genomic inversion in Russia [15] , [16] , [32] . CA-MRSA/J has its own unique features: SCC mec IVl with spj (described above) and the phage-related chromosomal island SaPI (SAPIj50) carrying a tst region, which may have originated from SaPIm1/n1 of the ST5/SCC mec II HA-MRSA New York/Japan clone [10] .…”

Possibility of identifying plant components of the diet of Harpalus rufipes (Coleoptera, Carabidae) by visual evaluation

“…Также актуальным остается изучение распространенности метициллин-резистентного стафилококка (MRSA) в молоке и молочных продуктах (Kwon et al, 2005;Crago et al, 2012;Wang et al, 2014;Doulgeraki et al, 2017;Hamid et al, 2017;Macori et al, 2017). Низкий уровень его выделения из продуктов питания в Украине не отражает реальной ситуации.…”