Antimicrobial Resistance and the Prevalence of the Panton-Valentine Leukocidin Gene among Clinical Isolates of in Lithuania.

This study aimed to determine resistance to antimicrobials of strains isolated from clinical specimens in Lithuanian hospitals and to identify the genes conferring resistance and virulence. The study was carried out from June 2019 to September 2021. strains were isolated from skin, soft tissues, blood, lower respiratory tract, urine and other specimens. Antibiotic susceptibility testing was performed using the disc diffusion method according to EUCAST guidelines. All isolates were analyzed for detection of the , , , , , , and genes by multiplex real-time PCR. The 16S rRNA coding sequence was applied as an internal PCR control. Altogether, 745 strains were analyzed. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing revealed that all isolates were susceptible to rifampin and vancomycin. Of the 745 strains, 94.8% were susceptible to tetracycline, 94.5% to clindamycin, and 88.3% to erythromycin. The lowest susceptibility rate was found for penicillin (25.8%). Six percent of the tested strains were methicillin-resistant (MRSA). The majority of methicillin-resistant strains were isolated from skin and soft tissues (73.3%), with a smaller portion isolated from blood (17.8%) and respiratory tract (8.9%). The gene was detected in 41.1% of erythromycin-resistant strains, whereas was detected in 32.2% of erythromycin-resistant strains. 69.2% of tetracycline-resistant strains had gene, and 28.2% had gene. 7.3% of isolates harbored gene. The frequency of the gene detection was significantly higher in MRSA isolates than in methicillin-susceptible isolates ( < 0.0001).