Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus: Molecular Characterization, Evolution, and Epidemiology
By Sahreena S. Lakhundi, Kunyan Zhang. Clinical Microbiology Reviews, 2018
1,244 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Staphylococcus aureus, a major human pathogen, has a collection of virulence factors and the ability to acquire resistance to most antibiotics. This ability is further augmented by constant emergence of new clones, making S. aureus a “superbug.” Clinical use of methicillin has led to the appearance of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). SUMMARY Staphylococcus aureus, a major human pathogen, has a collection of virulence factors and the ability to acquire resistance to most antibiotics. This ability is further augmented by constant emergence of new clones, making S. aureus a “superbug.” Clinical use of methicillin has led to the appearance of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). The past few decades have witnessed the existence of new MRSA clones. Unlike traditional MRSA residing in hospitals, the new clones can invade community settings and infect people without predisposing risk factors. This evolution continues with the buildup of the MRSA reservoir in companion and food animals. This review focuses on imparting a better understanding of MRSA evolution and its molecular characterization and epidemiology. We first describe the origin of MRSA, with emphasis on the diverse nature of staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec). mecA and its new homologues (mecB, mecC, and mecD), SCCmec types (13 SCCmec types have been discovered to date), and their classification criteria are discussed. The review then describes various typing methods applied to study the molecular epidemiology and evolutionary nature of MRSA. Starting with the historical methods and continuing to the advanced whole-genome approaches, typing of collections of MRSA has shed light on the origin, spread, and evolutionary pathways of MRSA clones.
Subfields: Clinical Biochemistry, Infectious Diseases, Molecular Biology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a87333809e1288820d94a19c6e8ab2d5e2ef46bb
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In Infectious Diseases
In Molecular Biology
Citations in the corpus
- Antimicrobial Resistance in ESKAPE Pathogens (2020, background): “In MRSA, resistance to methicillin and other -lactam antibiotics is mediated through expression of the foreign mecA gene. mecA codes for PBP2a, a modified PBP with a low affinity for -lactams, which renders most -lactam agents completely ineffective against MRSA (176). mecA is located within the sta”
- Prevalence and Therapies of Antibiotic-Resistance in Staphylococcus aureus (2020, background): “Moreover, MRSA has rapidly become the most frequently occurring resistant pathogen identified in many parts of the world, including Europe, the United States, North Africa, the Middle East and East Asia (Mediavilla et al., 2012; Lakhundi and Zhang, 2018).”