title: High Prevalence of Exfoliative Toxins Among Carrier Isolates of Staphylococcus aureus from Healthy Individuals from Various Communities in Chennai, South India.
abstract: Staphylococcus aureus causes infections both in community and hospital settings, nasal carriage is the important source of these infections. A total of 103 carrier isolates of S. aureus from 352 asymptomatic individuals were screened for methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and exfoliative toxins (A, B and D) by two sets of multiplex PCRs. The overall nasal carriage of MRSA was found to be 13/352 (3.7 %), of which 4 were found to be positive for Panton valentine leucocidin (PVL). Twelve (11.65 %) strains were found to carry exfoliative toxins and belonged to one of the following spa types t159, t209 and t1515. High prevalence of exfoliative toxins, pvl and MRSA pose a major threat to public health, since the isolates were from the healthy in various community settings.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, University of Madras, Chennai, 600113 India.
authors.forename: Nagarajan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Abimanyu
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, University of Madras, Chennai, 600113 India.
authors.forename: Saravanan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Murugesan
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, University of Madras, Chennai, 600113 India.
authors.forename: Padma
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Krishnan
keywords: CA-MRSA; Exfoliative toxins; SCCmec; pvl; t159; t209