Typing of Staphylococcus epidermidis clinical strains by a selected panel of Brazilian killer yeasts.
Discrimination of multi-resistant microorganisms in small clinical microbiology laboratories is frequently based on the biologic profile (biotype) of phenotypic markers, such as antimicrobial susceptibility patterns (antibiograms) and serologic or enzymatic typing, but few use indicative microorganisms. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the power of a panel of selected killer yeasts for differentiating and discriminating clinical isolates of Staphylococcus epidermidis from two care hospitals and clinical microbiology laboratories from the South of Brazil. The short panel of eleven killer yeasts was capable of discriminating 100% of the sensitive strains of S. epidermidis using quantitative data matrix (QDM) and differentiating them from strains of coagulase-positive Staphylococcus. Therefore, this phenotypic methodology proved to be valid as a discriminatory tool when applied to these clinical bacteria strains, besides being simple and feasible for routine use even in microbiological laboratories with minimal resources.
Fuentefria
Alexandre M
AM
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biologia Celular e Molecular, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
Perez
Leandro R R
LR
Alves d'Azevedo
Pedro
P
Pazzini
Fabiano
F
Schrank
Augusto
A
Vainstein
Marilene H
MH
Valente
Patricia
P
D000898:Antibiosis; D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D001938:Brazil; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests / Q000379:methods*; D013203:Staphylococcal Infections / Q000382:microbiology; D013212:Staphylococcus epidermidis / Q000145:classification*; D015003:Yeasts / Q000502:physiology*