title: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus typing methods: which should be the international standard?
abstract: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has spread to all parts of the world. Effective control measures are dependent on a thorough knowledge of the organism's epidemiology which requires a typing technique that can be universally applied. Many typing methods have been developed for MRSA but none has been adopted as the internationally recognized standard. This review summarizes the information available on each in order to assess their suitability as a reference procedure. The majority of phenotypic and genotypic techniques are not sufficiently discriminatory, reproducible, stable or useful in an outbreak to be acceptable. The methods which do fulfil these requirements and have a potential for standardization, such as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, binary typing or a combination of more rapid techniques, require further systematic evaluation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Microbiology, City Hospital NHS Trust, Dudley Road, Birmingham, B18 7QH. Weller@bham.ac.uk
authors.forename: T M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Weller
mesh_terms: D001434:Bacteriophage Typing / Q000379:methods; D015139:Blotting, Southern / Q000379:methods; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004586:Electrophoresis / Q000379:methods; D005838:Genotype; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D015151:Immunoblotting / Q000379:methods; D007391:International Cooperation; D016106:Methicillin Resistance; D010641:Phenotype; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D015183:Restriction Mapping / Q000379:methods; D012703:Serotyping / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*; D013203:Staphylococcal Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology*; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial