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Alterations in phage-typing patterns in vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus

John E. Gustafson¹, Frances G. O'Brien², Geoffrey W. Coombs², Mary J. Malkowski², Warren B. Grubb², Richard F. Pfeltz^3, and Brian J. Wilkinson³

¹Department of Biology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001, USA ²Gram-positive Bacteria Typing and Research Unit, Curtin University of Technology, and Royal Perth Hospital, Perth 6845, Western Australia ³Microbiology Group, Department of Biological Sciences, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-4120, USA

Correspondence John E. Gustafson jgustafs{at}nmsu.edu

Received February 3, 2003
Accepted April 16, 2003

The ability of phage-typing and SmaI chromosomal RFLPs to conclude appropriate strain relatedness between a collection of 12 well-characterized in vitro-selected vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus (VISA) strains and their seven vancomycin-susceptible parent strains is reported. Generally, no SmaI RFLP alterations were observed in VISA strains when they were compared with their respective parent strains, and clonal relationships between isogenic strains were clearly evident. Unlike the SmaI RFLP results, parent strains and VISA derivatives generally did not share similar phage-typing profiles. Depending on the phage set investigated, some VISA strains even became untypable by this method. Loss of phage infectivity is probably due to cell wall (phage receptor) alterations that are expressed by the VISA strains investigated. Collectively, these findings indicate that inappropriate relationships between VISA and vancomycin-susceptible parents might be drawn if only phage-typing and antibiotic susceptibility are utilized to determine epidemiological relationships.

Abbreviations: MRSA, methicillin-resistant S. aureus; VISA, vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus; VRSA, vancomycin-resistant S. aureus.