During the collection of airborne bacteria in a museum in England some bact
erial strains were isolated which due to their fatty acid profiles were cle
arly identified as members of the genus Staphylococcus. As fatty acid compo
sitions of coagulase-negative staphylococci are very similar, differing onl
y in quantities but not in qualities, further identification at the species
level without a fatty acid database was not achieved. Investigation of the
isolates using the Staph ID 32 API system resulted in an identification of
the isolates as Staphylococcus epidermidis (probabilities of 79.7-95.5%).
For further genotypic characterization of these isolates, some Staphylococc
us epidermidis strains from different sources and the type strains of Staph
ylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus capitis, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Staph
ylococcus gallinarum, Staphylococcus haemolyticus, Staphylococcus hominis,
Staphylococcus warneri and Staphylococcus xylosus were subjected to repetit
ive-sequence PCR, including enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus
(ERIC) PCR, BOX-PCR and repetitive extragenic palindromic unit sequence (R
EP) PCR. ERIC- and BOX-PCR yielded a species-specific banding pattern for a
ll Staphylococcus epidermidis strains. Furthermore, all staphylococcal refe
rence strains investigated exhibited distinct banding patterns, clearly dis
tinguishable from that of Staphylococcus epidermidis. No species-specific b
anding patterns could be observed after REP PCR. As species identification
of coagulase-negative staphylococci by fatty acid analyses and biochemical
tests is known to be difficult ERIC- and BOX-PCR seem to be excellent tools
for the identification of Staphylococcus epidermidis isolates.