Genetic studies on toxic shock syndrome toxin-1 (TSST-1) producing Staphylococcus aureus strains from Austria, the USA and West Germany.

DNA preparations obtained from 10 different toxic shock syndrome toxin-1 positive S. aureus strains from Austria, the USA and West Germany were examined in respect of their homology to the TSST-1 gene of pRN6101. Whole cell DNA was digested with HpaII or EcoRI, separated on agarose gels and transferred to nitrocellulose; furthermore the dotblot procedure was used. The radioactively labelled gene probe used was the 300 bp BamHI-HindII fragment of the TSST-1 gene region of pRN6101. All S. aureus strains had homology with this fragment. Homology was located on fragments of different molecular size. Therefore it is concluded that the TSST-1 DNA fragment has different locations in the chromosome of different S. aureus strains.