Genomic Research Laboratory, Geneva University Hospitals, Switzerland.
Future Microbiol. 2011 May;6(5):513-32. doi: 10.2217/fmb.11.38.
Staphylococcus aureus is a major human pathogen responsible for a wide diversity of infections ranging from localized to life threatening diseases. From 1961 and the emergence of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), this bacterium has shown a particular capacity to survive and adapt to drastic environmental changes and since the beginning of the 1990s it has spread worldwide. Until recently, S. aureus was considered as the prototype of a nosocomial pathogen but it has now been recognized as an agent responsible for outbreaks in the community. Several recent reports suggest that the epidemiology of MRSA is changing. Understanding of pathogenicity, virulence and emergence of epidemic clones within MRSA populations is not clearly defined, despite several attempts to identify common molecular features between strains that share similar epidemiological and/or virulence behavior. These studies included: pattern profiling of bacterial adhesins, analysis of clonal complex groups, molecular genotyping and enterotoxin content analysis. To date, all approaches failed to find a correlation between molecular determinants and clinical outcomes. We hypothesize that the capacity of the bacterium to become more invasive or virulent is determined by genetics. The utilization of massively parallel methods of analysis is therefore ideal to study the contribution of genetics. Therefore, this article focuses on the entire genome including coding sequences as well as noncoding sequences. This high resolution approach allows the monitoring micro- and macroevolution of MRSA and identification of specific genomic markers of evolution of invasive or highly virulent phenotypes.
金黄色葡萄球菌是一种主要的人类病原体，可导致从局部到危及生命的各种感染。自 1961 年耐甲氧西林金黄色葡萄球菌（MRSA）出现以来，这种细菌表现出特别的生存和适应剧烈环境变化的能力，自 20 世纪 90 年代初以来，它已在全球范围内传播。直到最近，金黄色葡萄球菌才被认为是医院病原体的原型，但现在它已被认为是导致社区暴发的病原体。最近的几项报告表明，MRSA 的流行病学正在发生变化。尽管已经多次尝试确定具有相似流行病学和/或毒力行为的菌株之间的常见分子特征，但对其致病性、毒力和流行克隆的出现的理解还不明确。这些研究包括：细菌黏附素的模式分析、克隆复合体群的分析、分子基因分型和肠毒素含量分析。迄今为止，所有方法都未能在分子决定因素与临床结果之间找到相关性。我们假设细菌变得更具侵袭性或毒性的能力取决于遗传因素。因此，利用大规模平行分析方法来研究遗传因素的贡献是理想的。因此，本文重点关注整个基因组，包括编码序列和非编码序列。这种高分辨率方法允许监测 MRSA 的微观和宏观进化，并确定侵袭性或高毒性表型进化的特定基因组标记。
