Mingling of human and veterinary strains of Staphylococcus aureus: An emerging issue in health-care systems

Research Article

International Journal of One Health, 3: 77-82

https://doi.org/10.14202/IJOH.2017.77-82

Sara Giordana Rimoldi¹, Annamaria Di Gregorio¹, Vittorio Sala², Eleonora De Faveri², Cristina Pagani¹, Pietro Olivieri³, Claudio Savi⁴, Anna Lisa Ridolfo⁵, Antona Carlo⁶, and Maria Rita Gismondo¹

1. Laboratory of Microbiology, Virology and Bioemergency, ASST Fatebenefratelli Sacco-Polo Universitario, Via G.B. Grassi 74, 20157 Milan, Italy.
2. Department of Veterinary Sciences and Public Health, Universita di Milano, Italy.
3. Medical Management Staff, ASST Fatebenefratelli Sacco-Polo Universitario, Via G.B. Grassi 74, 20157 Milan, Italy.
4. Cardiac Surgical Intensive Care Unit, ASST Fatebenefratelli Sacco-Polo Universitario, Via G.B. Grassi 74, 20157 Milan, Italy.
5. Department of Infectious Diseases, ASST Fatebenefratelli Sacco-Polo Universitario, Via G.B. Grassi 74, 20157 Milan, Italy.
6. Cardiac Surgery Unit, ASST Fatebenefratelli Sacco-Polo Universitario, Via G.B. Grassi 74, 20157 Milan, Italy.

Background and Aim: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus remains a leading cause of hospital and community infections. We report a retrospective molecular characterization of S. aureus strains from different settings: hospital workers and patients, and veterinarian surgeons and pets.

Materials and Methods: Eighty-nine S. aureus isolates obtained from nasal swabs of 10 patients, 17 health-care workers (HCWs), 9 pets, and 53 veterinarians were genotypically characterized by means of repetitive extragenic palindromic polymerase chain reaction (Rep PCR) and whole-genome sequencing.

Results: Thirteen different sequence types (STs) were detected: ST398, ST22, ST8, ST30, ST15, ST5, ST121, ST45, ST10, ST6, ST34, ST97, and ST1. Two new STs differing from ST22 and ST5 for a single multilocus sequence typing gene were also identified. Rep PCR documented a genetic relationship among isolates obtained from 5 veterinarians and 10 HCWs.

Conclusion: The large diversity of S. aureus strains detected may reflect a larger epidemiology within the hospital and community, in which companion animals likely act as a reservoir. We identified the circulation of ST5, ST8, ST15, ST22, ST30, ST45, and ST121 both in the hospital and veterinarian environment. Starting from the idea of a unique setting where our population lives, we consider the relationship between community- and hospital-acquired S. aureus. Keywords: health-care workers, multilocus sequence typing, S. aureus, single-nucleotide polymorphisms, pets, veterinarians..

Keywords: health-care workers, multilocus sequence typing, S. aureus, single-nucleotide polymorphisms, pets, veterinarians..

How to cite this article: Rimoldi SG, Di Gregorio A, Sala V, De Faveri E, Pagani C, Olivieri P, Savi C, Ridolfo AL, Carlo A, Gismondo MR. Mingling of human and veterinary strains of Staphylococcus aureus: An emerging issue in health-care systems. Int J One Health 2017;3:77-82.

Received: 03-08-2017 Accepted: 30-10-2017 Published online: 28-11-2017

Corresponding author: Sara Giordana Rimoldi E-mail: sara.rimoldi@asst-fbf-sacco.it

DOI: 10.14202/IJOH.2017.77-82

Copyright: Rimoldi, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.