Expression of a clone specific DNA sequence from Staphylococcus aureus in Escherichia coli

Staphylococcus aureus produces a large number of factors thought to contrib ute to virulence, although the precise role of some of these individual fac tors is not clearly defined. To investigate whether specific virulence fact ors might be responsible for the selection and dominance of certain genotyp es of methicillin- and multiply resistant S. aureus (MRSA), the method of s ubtractive hybridisation was used to identify conserved DNA sequences assoc iated with the clinical, clonal populations of S. aureus. The findings desc ribed in this report indicate that the method of subtractive hybridisation is a valuable tool to identify clone specific virulence factors, which migh t be of potential as diagnostic markers and as alternative vaccine targets. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.