I. Couto et al., Identification of clinical staphylococcal isolates from humans by internaltranscribed spacer PCR, J CLIN MICR, 39(9), 2001, pp. 3099-3103
The emergence of coagulase-negative staphylococci not only as human pathoge
ns but also as reservoirs of antibiotic resistance determinants requires th
e deployment and development of methods for their rapid and reliable identi
fication. Internal transcribed spacer-PCR (ITS-PCR) was used to identify a
collection of 617 clinical staphylococcal isolates. The amplicons were reso
lved in high-resolution agarose gels and visually compared with the pattern
s obtained for the control strains of 29 staphylococcal species. Of the 617
isolates studied, 592 (95.95%) were identified by ITS-PCR and included 11-
species: 302 isolates of Staphylococcus epidermidis, 157 of S. haemolyticus
, 79 of S. aureus, 21 of S. hominis, 14 of S. saprophyticus, 8 of S. warner
i, 6 of S. simulans, 2 of S. lugdunensis, and 1 each of S. caprae, S. carno
sus, and S. cohnii. All species analyzed had unique ITS-PCR patterns, altho
ugh some were very similar, namely, the group S. saprophyticus, S. cohnii,
S. gallinarum, S. xylosus, S. lentus, S. equorum, and S. chromogenes, the p
air S. schleiferi and S. vitulus, and the pair S. piscifermentans and S. ca
rnosus. Four species, S. aureus, S. caprae, S. haemolyticus, and S. lugdune
nsis, showed polymorphisms on their ITS-PCR patterns. ITS-PCR proved to be
a valuable alternative for the identification of staphylococci, offering, w
ithin the same response time and at lower cost, higher reliability than the
currently available commercial systems.