Surgical Site Infections Caused by Highly Virulent Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Sequence Type 398, China

Abstract

We identified 2 methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains of sequence type 398 from surgical site infections in China. Genetic analysis and clinical data from these strains suggested that they were human-related but sporadic. Hemolysis analysis and mouse-skin infection models indicated a high virulence potential for these strains.

Keywords

• MRSA
• ST398
• surgical site infection
• core genome MLST
• virulence
• bacteria