title: High intraspecies heterogeneity within Staphylococcus sciuri and rejection of its classification into S. sciuri subsp. sciuri, S. sciuri subsp. carnaticus and S. sciuri subsp. rodentium.
abstract: A polyphasic taxonomic approach was applied to strains of the species Staphylococcus sciuri in order to clarify the taxonomic legitimacy of the delineation of S. sciuri into S. sciurisubsp.sciuri, S. sciurisubsp.carnaticus and S. sciurisubsp.rodentium. A group of 81 S. sciuri isolates obtained from human (n=62) and veterinary (n=17) clinical materials and foods (n=2) and ten reference and type strains obtained from the Czech Collection of Microorganisms were characterized by extensive biotyping using conventional tests and commercial identification kits (ID 32 Staph, STAPHYtest, Biolog Microbial ID System), matrix-assisted laser-desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry, automated ribotyping with EcoRI restriction enzyme, 16S-23S rRNA gene intergenic transcribed spacer PCR fingerprinting and repetitive sequence-based PCR fingerprinting with the (GTG)5 primer. Selected strains representing different ribotypes were further characterized using sequencing of the β-subunit of RNA polymerase (rpoB) gene. Individual techniques revealed high heterogeneity within the analysed S. sciuri strains but differentiation of the investigated strains into groups corresponding to the aforementioned S. sciuri subspecies and supported by these techniques was not clearly revealed. Based on obtained results and data retrieved from literature we propose rejecting the separation of S. sciuri species into S. sciurisubsp.sciuri, S. sciurisubsp.carnaticus and S. sciurisubsp.rodentium and we suggest reclassification these subspecies as S. sciuri with the type strain W.E. Kloos SC 116T (=ATCC 29062T=BCRC 12927T=CCM 3473T=CCUG 15598T=CNCTC 5683T=DSM 20345T=JCM 2425T=NCTC 12103T).
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Biology, Czech Collection of Microorganisms, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kamenice 5, Bld. A25, 625 00 Brno, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Pavel
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Švec
authors.affiliation: Reference Laboratory for Staphylococci, National Institute of Public Health, Šrobárova 48, 100 42 Prague 10, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Petr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Petráš
authors.affiliation: Division of Genetics and Molecular Biology, Department of Experimental Biology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlářská 2, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Roman
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pantůček
authors.affiliation: Division of Genetics and Molecular Biology, Department of Experimental Biology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlářská 2, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jiří
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Doškař
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Biology, Czech Collection of Microorganisms, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kamenice 5, Bld. A25, 625 00 Brno, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Ivo
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Sedláček
mesh_terms: D001482:Base Composition; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D021521:Ribotyping; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013210:Staphylococcus / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S