Volume 7, Number 2—April 2001
THEME ISSUE
4th Decennial International Conference on Nosocomial and Healthcare-Associated Infections
State of the Art
Molecular Epidemiology of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus
Bo Shopsin*† and Barry N. Kreiswirth*
Table 1
Comparison of typing methods used to discriminate Staphylococcus aureus strains
| Method | Total no. of types | No. classified | No. misclassified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phage typing | 18 | 25 | 4 |
| Antibiogram | 21 | 26 | 6 |
| Biotype | 23 | 17 | 2 |
| Plasmids | 20 | 23 | 0 |
| HindIII ribotyping | 16 | 27 | 7 |
| ClaI ribotyping | 9 | 29 | 7 |
| IS typing | 9 | 16 | 3 |
| RFLP typing | 17 | 28 | 3 |
| coa-PCR | 7 | 28 | 8 |
| PFGE | 25 | 28 | 7 |
| FIGEa | 25 | 27 | 3 |
| Immunoblotting | 23 | 28 | 6 |
| MLEE | 21 | 26 | 4 |
| Range | 7-25 | 16-28 | 0-8 |
| Average | 18 | 25 | 5 |
| spa-typing | 13 | 27 | 4 |
aFIGE = field-inversion gel electrophoresis.
