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The distribution of plasmids that carry virulence and resistance genes in Staphylococcus aureus is lineage associated.

McCarthy, AJ; Lindsay, JA (2012) The distribution of plasmids that carry virulence and resistance genes in Staphylococcus aureus is lineage associated. BMC Microbiology, 12 (104). ISSN 1471-2180 https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2180-12-104
SGUL Authors: Lindsay, Jodi Anne

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Staphylococcus aureus is major human and animal pathogen. Plasmids often carry resistance genes and virulence genes that can disseminate through S. aureus populations by horizontal gene transfer (HGT) mechanisms. Sequences of S. aureus plasmids in the public domain and data from multi-strain microarrays were analysed to investigate (i) the distribution of resistance genes and virulence genes on S. aureus plasmids, and (ii) the distribution of plasmids between S. aureus lineages. RESULTS: A total of 21 plasmid rep gene families, of which 13 were novel to this study, were characterised using a previously proposed classification system. 243 sequenced plasmids were assigned to 39 plasmid groups that each possessed a unique combination of rep genes. We show some resistance genes (including ermC and cat) and virulence genes (including entA, entG, entJ, entP) were associated with specific plasmid groups suggesting there are genetic pressures preventing recombination of these genes into novel plasmid groups. Whole genome microarray analysis revealed that plasmid rep, resistance and virulence genes were associated with S. aureus lineages, suggesting restriction-modification (RM) barriers to HGT of plasmids between strains exist. Conjugation transfer (tra) complex genes were rare. CONCLUSION: This study argues that genetic pressures are restraining the spread of resistance and virulence genes amongst S. aureus plasmids, and amongst S. aureus populations, delaying the emergence of fully virulent and resistant strains.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: PMCID: PMC3406946 © 2012 McCarthy and Lindsay; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords: Animals, Cluster Analysis, Computational Biology, DNA Restriction-Modification Enzymes, Drug Resistance, Bacterial, Gene Transfer, Horizontal, Genes, Bacterial, Humans, Microarray Analysis, Plasmids, Staphylococcal Infections, Staphylococcus aureus, Virulence Factors
SGUL Research Institute / Research Centre: Academic Structure > Infection and Immunity Research Institute (INII)
Journal or Publication Title: BMC Microbiology
ISSN: 1471-2180
Dates:
DateEvent
12 June 2012Published
PubMed ID: 22691167
Web of Science ID: 22691167
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URI: https://openaccess.sgul.ac.uk/id/eprint/99959
Publisher's version: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2180-12-104

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