title: Relatedness of strains of methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative Staphylococcus colonizing hospital personnel and producing bacteremias in a neonatal intensive care unit.
abstract: The emergence of methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative Staphylococcus as a major bacterial pathogen in neonatal intensive care units has stimulated interest in the epidemiology of spread of the organism. During a 12-month "epidemic" of bacteremias with methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative Staphylococcus we compared the characteristics of bacteremic and personnel nasally-carried strains by traditional and biomolecular methods. Sixty-two percent of neonatal intensive care unit nurses were colonized with methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative Staphylococcus with similar speciation to bacteremic strains. Inspection of plasmid profiles revealed a moderate degree of similarity between bacteremic and colonizing strains although genomic DNA restriction patterns showed diversity. Ribotype patterns were highly conserved (90%) in personnel strains. A 2.6-kilobase plasmid DNA probe hybridized to similarly sized plasmids and larger plasmids in one-half of the strains. We hypothesize that related methicillin-resistant strains may be transferred among personnel and neonates in the neonatal intensive care unit. Epidemiologic studies of coagulase-negative staphylococci should consider multiple molecular techniques to relate strains.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston 29425.
authors.forename: C H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Patrick
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: John
authors.forename: A H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Levkoff
authors.forename: L M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Atkins
mesh_terms: D016470:Bacteremia / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology*; D002353:Carrier State; D003030:Coagulase; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology*; D005821:Genetic Techniques; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007363:Intensive Care Units, Neonatal; D016106:Methicillin Resistance; D010564:Personnel, Hospital; D013045:Species Specificity; D013203:Staphylococcal Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology*; D013210:Staphylococcus / Q000145:classification* / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000472:pathogenicity*
chemical_list: D003030:Coagulase