title: Phages for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus: an international trial.
abstract: An internationally agreed and validated set of phages is used worldwide for the typing of strains of Staphylococcus aureus of human origin. However, because of the sometimes reduced susceptibility of methicillin-resistant strains (MRSA) to these phages, some of the national typing centres use locally isolated and characterized sets of experimental phages. In this trial, 42 such phages were distributed to 6 centres and tested against 744 isolates of MRSA with the intention of defining a phage set to augment the international set. The use of these experimental phages increased the percentage typability from 75% with the international set to 93% and the number of identifiable lytic patterns from 192 to 424. A subset of 10 experimental phages was selected. When this subset was compared with the experimental panel, the typability rate was 91% and 370 distinct patterns were obtained. This subset of phages has been distributed for international trial.
authors.affiliation: Campylobacter Reference Unit, Central Public Health Laboratory, London, UK.
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Richardson
authors.forename: V T
authors.initials: VT
authors.lastname: Rosdahl
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: van Leeuwen
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Vickery
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vindel
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Witte
mesh_terms: D001434:Bacteriophage Typing / Q000379:methods*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D007391:International Cooperation; D016106:Methicillin Resistance; D012015:Reference Standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013203:Staphylococcal Infections / Q000382:microbiology; D013204:Staphylococcus Phages / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000145:classification* / Q000187:drug effects / Q000821:virology