HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplementary Figure Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Luca-Harari, B. Articles by Jasir, A. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Luca-Harari, B. Articles by Jasir, A. Agricola Articles by Luca-Harari, B. Articles by Jasir, A.

Molecular characterization of invasive and non-invasive Streptococcus pyogenes isolates from Romania

¹ Institute of Laboratory Medicine, Section of Medical Microbiology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

² National Institute of Research and Development for Microbiology and Immunology, Cantacuzino, Bucharest, Romania

³ German National Reference Center for Streptococci, Department of Medical Microbiology, University Hospital RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany

⁴ Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology, Lund University Hospital (USIL), Lund, Sweden

Correspondence
Aftab Jasir
aftab.jasir{at}med.lu.se

Received March 11, 2008
Accepted July 4, 2008

In 2002, the Romanian National Reference Laboratory was invited to join the Strep-EURO project to study invasive Streptococcus pyogenes infections. During 2003 and 2004, a total of 33 isolates recovered from invasive disease were received from eight Romanian counties. For comparison, 102 isolates from non-invasive disease, as well as a collection of 12 old invasive strains (isolated between 1967 and 1980) were included. All isolates were characterized by several methods: T and emm typing, presence of the fibronectin-binding protein F1 gene (prtF1), serum opacity factor (sof), and superantigen (SAg) genes (speA, speB, speC, speF, speG, speH, ssa and smeZ). The recent invasive isolates exhibited 19 emm-types, of which emm1, emm81, emm76, emm49 and emm78 covered 57 % of the strains. Furthermore, multilocus sequence typing analysis revealed nine new sequence types, corresponding to emm types 1, 12, 49, 81, 92, 100, 106 and 119. The non-invasive isolates comprised 24 different emm types with a predominance of emm1 and 12; the old invasive strains were of eight emm types, of which four were unique for this group. All isolates harboured speB and speF; smeZ was detected in all invasive strains, except for the emm49 and emm81 isolates. The majority of isolates from carriers, and patients with pharyngitis were prtF1 positive, most of these (14 strains) being emm12. High tetracycline resistance rates were noted among both invasive and control isolates (54 % and 35 %, respectively), whereas macrolide resistance rates were low (3 % and 5 %, respectively). Active and continuing surveillance is required to provide an accurate assessment of the disease burden and to provide epidemiological data on the character of isolates in Romania.

Abbreviations: CSF, cerebrospinal fluid; GAS, group A streptoccocci; iGAS, invasive group A streptococci; MLST, multilocus sequence typing; NF, necrotizing fasciitis; PFGE, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis; RFLP, restriction fragment length polymorphism; SAgs, superantigens; SOF, serum opacity factor; ST, sequence type; STSS, streptococcal toxic shock syndrome; VT, vir type.