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Journal of Bacteriology, June 2008, p. 3962-3968, Vol. 190, No. 11
0021-9193/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.01947-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

The Carriage Population of Staphylococcus aureus from Mali Is Composed of a Combination of Pandemic Clones and the Divergent Panton-Valentine Leukocidin-Positive Genotype ST152

Raymond Ruimy,^1* Aminata Maiga,^1,2 Laurence Armand-Lefevre,¹ Ibrahim Maiga,² Amadou Diallo,² Abdel Karim Koumaré,³ Kalilou Ouattara,⁴ Sambou Soumaré,⁵ Kevin Gaillard,¹ Jean-Christophe Lucet,⁶ Antoine Andremont,¹ and Edward J. Feil⁷

Hospital Group Bichat-Claude Bernard, AP-HP, and EA 3964, Université Denis Diderot—Paris 7 Medical School, 75870 Paris Cedex 18, France,¹ Laboratoire de Biologie Médicale et d'Hygiène, CHU Point G, Bamako, Mali,² Service de Chirurgie B, CHU Point G, Bamako, Mali,³ Service d'Urologie, CHU Point G, Bamako, Mali,⁴ Service de Chirurgie A, CHU Point G, Bamako, Mali,⁵ Infection Control Unit, Bichat-Claude Bernard Hospital, Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Paris, Paris 7, 75870 Paris Cedex 18, France,⁶ Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom⁷

Received 14 December 2007/ Accepted 20 March 2008

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Staphylococcus aureus is an important human pathogen, but it appears more commonly in asymptomatic colonization of the nasopharynx than in cases of invasive disease. Evidence concerning the global population structure of S. aureus is limited by the overrepresentation in the multilocus sequence testing database of disease isolates recovered from Western Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Japan. We address this by presenting data from the S. aureus carriage population in Mali, the first detailed characterization of asymptomatic carriage from an African population. These data confirm the pandemic spread of many of the common S. aureus clones in the carriage population. We also note the high frequency (24%) of a single divergent genotype, sequence type 152 (ST152), which has not previously been recovered from nasal carriage isolates but corresponds to a sporadic Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL)-positive, community-acquired methicillin-resistant S. aureus clone noted mostly in Central Europe. We show that 100% of the ST152 isolates recovered from nasal carriage samples in Mali are PVL positive and discuss implications relating to the emergence and spread of this virulent genotype.

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Despite its deserved reputation as a dangerous pathogen, particularly in the hospital setting, Staphylococcus aureus is first and foremost a commensal species. At any given point in time, its asymptomatic colonization of the anterior nares can be detected in between 15% and 40% of the population, a frequency which massively outweighs the percentage of serious S. aureus infections (28, 30, 37, 38). Nasal carriage is an identified risk factor for S. aureus disease (17), and there has been a great deal of interest in identifying the bacterial genetic factors underlying virulence potential. Although, in some cases, disease onset is clearly associated with a single gene or pathogenicity island (27), serious invasive disease typically results from complex interactions between many gene loci (8, 19, 36).

A potentially powerful approach to understanding the link between bacterial genotype and the propensity to cause disease is to compare contemporaneous samples of isolates recovered from the same location but from different epidemiological settings. Such an approach was presented by Feil et al., who used multilocus sequence typing (MLST) to compare disease isolates and carriage isolates recovered from Oxfordshire, United Kingdom (8). Once the selective expansion of specific drug-resistant (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus [MRSA]) clones was taken into account, disease and carriage isolates were found to be distributed randomly among different clonal lineages. This suggests that isolates recovered from cases of disease represent a random sample of the much larger reservoir of carriage strains, and the likelihood of infection by a particular clonal lineage simply reflects its frequency in the local carriage population. This does not necessarily imply that there is no variation among isolates with disease potential; it only implies that much of this variation is not detected by MLST. In cases where the sequences of isolates have remained the same at slowly evolving housekeeping loci, yet have diverged through the rapid loss or gain of virulence genes, MLST will lack the discriminatory power to distinguish isolates of differing virulence capabilities (15, 36).

There is now very strong evidence from the MLST and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis data sets that the same clonal lineages are responsible for cases of disease in many different parts of the world, although local frequencies vary (1, 29). Since the current evidence suggests that there are few significant differences (in terms of MLST genotype) between isolates from disease and the local carriage population, it follows that samples of asymptomatic carriage from different locations should, like disease isolates, consist of the same globally distributed clonal lineages. Put another way, carriage samples drawn on a localized scale might be expected to contain a large proportion of the global diversity (39). A recent comparison of carriage isolates from Holland and those from the United States reveals considerable overlap in genotype (22). This supports the view that the epidemiological patterns observed for invasive isolates can be extrapolated to the carriage population and predicts that the overall diversity of the carriage population should not increase significantly, as the sampling regime encompasses a wider geographical range.

There are currently two serious biases in the S. aureus MLST database which potentially distort our view of the global population structure of this species. First, there is an overrepresentation of isolates from cases of disease compared to those from asymptomatic carriage, although recent studies have started to address this (22). Second, isolates sourced from Western Europe, the United States, Australia, and Japan are overrepresented, and very few isolates from mainland Asia and almost none from Africa have been characterized. Here, we begin to address these biases by characterizing a sample of asymptomatic carriage isolates from a Malian population. To our knowledge, this is the first detailed characterization of carriage S. aureus strains from Africa, and we aimed to examine whether the well-characterized clones dominant in other parts of the world are also dominant in Mali. We were also motivated by two recent reports suggesting an African origin for common human pathogens, commensurate with the evolution of the host (human) population (20, 25). These reports raised the possibility that deepening the S. aureus MLST sampling frame might shed light on the evolution of S. aureus from coagulase-negative staphylococci.

We note that most of the carriage isolates from Mali correspond to clonal complexes (CCs) which are frequently observed in other parts of the world, consistent with the global distribution of these clones. However, we also note a high frequency (24%) of sequence type 152 (ST152), a genotype responsible for the rare and sporadic cases of Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL)-positive, community-acquired methicillin-resistant S. aureus (CA-MRSA) disease in Central Europe. Thus, we find elements of our data compatible with both global and local clonal expansion. We also note that ST152 occupies a divergent phylogenetic position relative to the two main groups of S. aureus previously described and that 100% of the carried ST152 isolates from the Malian population are PVL positive. The divergence of ST152 suggests it may be an ancient PVL-positive lineage, and the high frequency of this clone in nasal carriage samples has currently unknown but potentially serious public health implications for the Malian population. These data also raise the possibility that the sporadic community-acquired cases in Central Europe resulting from ST152 infection reflect clonal dissemination from Africa, although a far larger sampling effort is required to confirm this.

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Population and study design. The setting for the study was Point G National Hospital, a 380-bed tertiary-care hospital in Bamako, Mali. Patients (>15 to <80 years old) admitted to emergency surgery from March through August 2005 had nasal swab cultures performed within 8 h after their arrival. Demographic data, reason for admission, medical history (underlying diseases), and history of hospitalization were collected prospectively for all patients admitted.

Isolate collection. Swab specimens were collected from both anterior nares of each patient, transported and stored at 4°C for a maximum of 24 h until they were inoculated onto mannitol salt agar plates (Oxoid, Basingstoke, United Kingdom) for S. aureus detection, and then discharged in brain heart infusion broth kept at –80°C. The plates were incubated at 37°C and examined for growth after 24 to 48 h. Isolates that produced yellow colonies were identified as S. aureus by Gram staining, catalase testing, and a rabbit plasma coagulase test (bioMérieux, Charbonnières-les-Bains, France). Confirmed S. aureus isolates were stored in brain heart infusion broth at –80°C for further investigation in the microbiology laboratory of Groupe Hospitalier Bichat-Claude Bernard.

Antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Susceptibility testing was performed by the disk diffusion method on Mueller-Hinton agar plates for the following antibiotics: benzylpenicillin, oxacillin, cefoxitin, kanamycin, tobramycin, gentamicin, erythromycin, lincomycin, pristinamycin, pefloxacin, vancomycin, teicoplanin, tetracycline, and fusidic acid. Results were interpreted according to the guidelines of the French Society for Microbiology (http://www.sfm.asso.fr/).

DNA extraction. Template DNA was prepared by a thermal-shock method. Briefly, a colony was melted into a suspension of 80 µl of DNase-free, RNase-free H₂O and 20 µl of microbeads. This suspension was submitted to vortex agitation for 10 min and then to a thermal shock (1 min at 95°C, followed by 1 min at –20°C) and finally centrifuged. The supernatant was stored at –80°C and used as template DNA.

Real-time PCR. Primers targeting a specific rrs region of staphylococci, the femA gene (specific for S. aureus), and the mecA gene (methicillin resistance) were used to confirm S. aureus phenotypic identification and to detect whether it is mecA positive in a real-time PCR (33).

MLST. MLST analysis was performed on all S. aureus isolates as described previously (5), except that the primers used for tpi amplification were those described by Armand-Lefevre et al. (2). All PCR products were purified using the QIAquick PCR purification kit (Qiagen, Courtaboeuf, France) and sequenced using an ABI Prism sequencer (Applera). Trace files were edited using BioEdit biological sequence alignment editor v.5.0.6 (http://www.mbio.ncsu.edu/BioEdit/bioedit.html). Allele and ST assignments were made by comparisons to the S. aureus MLST database (http://saureus.mlst.net).

spa typing. The X region of the spa gene was amplified by PCR with primers 1095F (5'-AGACGATCCTTCGGTGAGC-3') and 1517R (5'-GCTTTTGCAATGTCATTTACTG-3') as described previously (34). The sequences of both strands were determined and analyzed with the same procedure described above for MLST. The spa types were determined and assigned through the spa type database (http://www.spaserver.ridom.de/) (32).

agr typing by multiplex PCR. The agr types were determined for all ST152 isolates by using only a multiplex PCR as described previously (12).

Detection of PVL-positive strains. An internal fragment of 1,844 bp of the lukSF-lukPV operon was amplified for all 21 of the ST152 isolates using primers PVLF (5'-GCTGCAACATTGTCGTTAGG-3') and PVLR (5'-TGAAGTTGATTGGGAAAATCA-3'). The amplification mixture for the gene fragment contained 100 ng of bacterial DNA, two primers at 400 nM each, 250 µM of each deoxynucleoside triphosphate (Boehringer Mannheim GmbH, Mannheim, Germany), 1x reaction buffer supplied by the manufacturer with 1.5 mM MgCl₂, and 1 U of AmpliTaq DNA polymerase (Applera, Courtaboeuf, France) in a final volume of 50 µl. DNA was amplified using the following protocol: 94°C for 4.5 min, then 30 cycles of 94°C for 30 s, 55°C for 1 min, and 72°C for 2 min, followed by 72°C for 10 min. PCR products were electrophoresed through agarose gels (2%, wt/vol) containing ethidium bromide (0.5 µg ml^–1) and visualized under UV irradiation. The two S. aureus strains, ATCC 25923 and ATCC 43866, were used as positive and negative controls, respectively.

Data analysis. The MLST results were compared against the MLST database (http://saureus.mlst.net) using Comparative eBURST (http://eburst.mlst.net) (10). Phylogenetic analysis was carried out using the neighbor-joining algorithm (Kimura two-parameter distance estimation) as implemented in MEGA 4.0 (35). The likelihood that two random strains picked from single and combined datasets will be identical (h; 1-H, where H is the heterozygosity i.e., the probability that two random strains will be different) was calculated from MLST profile data using Multilocus 2.2 (http://www.agapow.net), and statistical significance was gauged using a resampling procedure written in PERL by E. J. Feil.

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Frequency of nasal carriage. Nasal samplings from 448 patients were included in the study. The patients comprised 276 males (61.6%) and 172 females (38.4%), and their mean age was 58.3 years (range, 15 to 80 years). At least 95% of the patients sampled had no prior history of hospitalization; thus, the isolates recovered are assumed to have been acquired in the community. A total of 88 patients (19.6%) were positive for S. aureus carriage, 43 of which were male (48%) and 45 of which were female (52%). Among the 360 noncarriers, 233 were male (65%) and 127 were female (35%). A two-by-two chi-square test confirmed that the carriage rate is significantly lower in the male population (P = 0.006). This is surprising, as previous studies have reported higher carriage rates in men (6, 14, 40), and the reasons for this discrepancy are unclear. Patients who were positive for carriage were also younger than noncarriers (mean age, 41.1 years [range, 15 to 79 years] versus 51.6 years [15 to 80 years]) (Table 1), which is consistent with previous studies (reference 38 and references therein). No differences were noted with respect to the location of the patients' residence, McCabe index, or hospital ward (Table 1). Eighty-seven isolates were methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA), and one isolate was resistant (MRSA). The MRSA isolate was also resistant to tetracycline but sensitive to all other antibiotics. Of the 87 MSSA isolates, 3% were susceptible to penicillin, 26% to tetracycline, 94% to erythromycin, 98% to kanamycin, 99% to tobramycin and/or lincomycin, and 100% to gentamicin, ofloxacin, pristinamycin, vancomycin, teicoplanin, and fusidic acid.

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TABLE 1. Comparison of the characteristics of the 88 S. aureus carrier patients to those of the 360 noncarrier patients

MLST and eBURST analysis. The 88 isolates characterized by MLST were found to correspond to 20 STs. Chi-square tests revealed no significant differences in the frequencies of the most common STs according to age or gender (P > 0.05). Eighteen of the STs observed (90%) were present in the MLST database, and of the two new STs, only one isolate with a "singleton" genotype was noted (i.e., differing by at least five to seven loci from all other genotypes in the database). The singleton genotype for this isolate, ST1017, differs from ST45 at two loci (glp, gmk), so it probably belongs to CC45. No new alleles were detected. The single MRSA isolate corresponded to ST88. Eighteen of the 20 STs (90%) were found in six strains or fewer, and nine of the STs (45%) corresponded to only a single isolate. In contrast, over half of the samples corresponded to just two STs, ST15 (n = 24; 27.3%) and ST152 (n = 21; 23.9%) (Fig. 1). Whereas ST15 is commonly recorded in the MLST database, corresponding to isolates from both asymptomatic carriage and cases of disease, there is only one isolate in the database corresponding to ST152 (as of February 2008). This is an MRSA strain isolated from an abscess from a patient in Denmark in 2001 (7), and the data were deposited by Herminia de Lencastre. There are several reports in the literature linking ST152 with sporadic PVL-positive CA-MRSA infection in Central Europe (7, 13, 18, 23, 24, 26), and a single sporadic MRSA ST152 isolate has been noted in Australia (3). However, to our knowledge, the current study is the first to record ST152 from an asymptomatic carriage isolate.

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FIG. 1. Histogram showing the number of isolates of each ST present in the Mali sample. Almost half of the isolates correspond to two dominant STs, ST15 and ST152.

We screened all 21 of the ST152 isolates from Mali for the presence of PVL and found 100% of these isolates to be PVL positive. The implications of this in terms of the public health of the Malian population are potentially serious but currently unclear. We also checked the spa type and agr type of the 21 Malian ST152 isolates. All these isolates were found to be agr type I. spa type t355 was noted in 7 of the 21 ST152 isolates (33.3%), consistent with the data of Monecke et al. (23, 24). Types t084, t1149, and t1476 were each noted in two of the ST152 isolates (9.5%), and types t024, t127, t279, t311, t701, t774, t861, and t1215 were each noted in a single ST152 isolate (4.8%).

Comparative eBURST analysis was used to examine the diversity of the Malian sample against the entire S. aureus database (http://eburst.mlst.net). This revealed that many well-characterized clonal lineages are represented in the Malian sample, thus confirming the pandemic status of these clones (e.g., CC8, CC5, CC30, CC45, CC1, CC15, CC121, CC88) (Fig. 2). Within each of the major groups, six closely related pairs of STs belonging to the same CC are shown (Fig. 2 and 3). Each pair represents a clonal founder and an associated single-locus variant. The number of nucleotide differences between the two alleles at the single divergent locus in each pair can be used to gauge the likelihood that the allele in the founder genotype has changed by mutation or recombination (8). In four out of six cases, the pairs of strains differ by a single base, which is consistent with point mutation. In one pair (ST6 and ST1018), there are five changes within the variant arcC locus, which is consistent with recombination. The final pair represents two nucleotide changes, which may be due to either mutation or recombination. Nevertheless, these data reveal four putative point mutations to one putative recombination event, a ratio which is consistent with previous estimates.

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FIG. 2. Comparative eBURST analysis showing the clonal assignment of the STs present in the Malian sample compared to that of the STs in the entire S. aureus MLST database. The names of the CCs are based on the ST assigned as the founder (central) genotype of the complex shown in blue. Subgroup founders are shown in yellow. The sizes of the circles reflect the frequencies of the genotype. A link between genotypes signifies a single-locus difference. Only the names of the Malian STs are given. The two new STs are underlined. STs not present in the database are highlighted by a green halo; STs present in the database are highlighted by a pink halo. The singleton genotype ST1017 is a double-locus variant of ST45, as shown by the dashed arrow. The two dominant STs (ST15 and ST152) are shown in red.

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FIG. 3. Unrooted neighbor-joining tree based on concatenated MLST data showing the relationships between the 20 STs present in the Malian sample. The two main groups identified in previous studies are shown (group 1 and group 2). ST152 occupies a divergent position and does not cluster with either group. The trifurcating central node is closest to group 1, suggesting that this group is basal to group 2. The six pairs of closely related STs (single-locus variants) are ringed with dashed circles. Four of these pairs differ by a single base, consistent with a point mutation, and these are marked with an "M." One pair (ST6 and ST1018) differ at five nucleotide sites at arcC, consistent with a recombination event ("R"), and the final pair differ at two sites at aroE, which is probably due to a recombination event, although mutation cannot be ruled out ("R?").

Comparison of two carriage populations. The recovery of common clonal lineages within the Malian carriage population strongly supports the view that these lineages are globally disseminated, an observation consistent with a recent report by Melles et al. (22). However, difficulties may arise because the MLST database was assembled piecemeal in the absence of an overarching sampling strategy and, thus, is not a representative population sample (21). Comparing representative samples from distinct geographic regions should provide a more rigorous test of local versus global clonal spread than referencing the database as a whole. We therefore compared the Mali data with those derived from the carriage isolates from the United Kingdom described by Feil et al. (8). Although both studies attempted to obtain representative population samples, this comparison is not ideal because the sampling strategies differed and may therefore be subject to different biases. Furthermore, the size of the United Kingdom sample (n = 179) was approximately double that of the Mali sample (n = 88), and the United Kingdom isolates were sampled in 1999 while the Mali isolates were sampled 6 years later. Despite these differences, the overall diversity of the strains (as measured by h, the probability that two random strains are identical) remains constant when the sample from Oxford (h, 0.063) is supplemented with the sample from Mali (h for both samples combined, 0.062). A resampling procedure confirmed that this difference is not significant (P > 0.05). Thus, the overall diversity of the S. aureus carriage population does not appear to increase with the geographic range of the sample.

Table 2 lists the major clonal lineages observed in the United Kingdom and Mali samples. Six major clonal lineages are present in both samples, which all together account for >70% of the United Kingdom isolates and >50% of the Mali isolates. In three of the six common CCs (CC8, CC5, and CC121), the differences in the frequencies of the CC among the samples are less than a factor of 2. Differences in the frequencies of the other CCs among the samples are noted. CC30 predominates in the United Kingdom sample (>33.5%) but is relatively rare in the Mali sample (4.5%); CC15 predominates in the Mali sample (28.4%) but at a lower frequency in the United Kingdom sample (11.7%); and CC45 corresponds to 8.9% of the United Kingdom sample but to only 2.3% of the Mali sample. Four CCs are observed in the United Kingdom sample only, and two are observed in the Mali sample only. These differences can be explained in terms of stochastic effects (genetic drift) or by sampling artifacts and do not necessarily imply local adaptation or limited migration.

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TABLE 2. Percentage of strains in the Mali and United Kingdom samples belonging to each of the major CCsa

The striking exception is ST152, which corresponds to 23.9% of the Mali isolates but is absent in the United Kingdom sample and has previously been recorded only sporadically in Central Europe. The presence of this clone at a high frequency in Mali is very unlikely to reflect a sampling artifact and, instead, appears to show significant geographical restriction. The distribution of ST152 is consistent with limited migration or local adaptation, in contrast with both the other major S. aureus lineages noted in the Malian population and the results of Melles et al. (22).

Phylogenetic analysis. The eBURST analysis described above assigns STs to CCs, but it does not attempt to reconstruct the relationships between complexes (10). We therefore constructed a neighbor-joining tree, using the concatenated sequences of the 20 STs noted in the Mali sample (Fig. 3). Although nearly a quarter of the sample corresponds to ST152, this genotype is poorly characterized and has not been incorporated into previous phylogenetic analyses. Previous studies have shown that MLST data—as well as those for other gene loci—divide the S. aureus population into two main clades (groups 1 and 2) (4, 15). This major subdivision is evident in Fig. 3. The novel singleton genotype detected in the Malian sample, ST1017, is confirmed as being closely related to ST45 and, hence, belongs to group 1. The six pairs of isolates belonging to the same CCs are ringed. ST6 and ST1018 are more divergent than the other pairs because ST1018 has undergone a recombination event resulting in five nucleotide changes at arcC.

ST152 is a striking exception as it does not belong to either group and is highly divergent. We note that the branch leading from group 1 to the trifurcating central node is shorter than the branch from group 2. This means that assigning ST152 as an outgroup would make group 1 basal to group 2, consistent with the relatively long branch lengths in group 1 as noted in previous studies (4, 31).

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Here, we have described for the first time the detailed characterization of a sample of asymptomatically carried S. aureus isolates from an African population. We note that while many of the common carriage clones observed in the Mali sample are globally disseminated, we also identified a high frequency of a single divergent clone, ST152, which has not previously been detected among carriage isolates. A comparison with the carriage population from the United Kingdom confirms that the Mali sample is composed of a combination of pandemic clones and a single high-frequency localized clone.

Our results confirm the strong clonality of the S. aureus population, reflecting a low rate of recombination compared to point mutation (8, 11). This is in contrast with the results for other human pathogens, such as Streptococcus pneumoniae and Neisseria meningitidis, for which there is evidence of much higher rates of recombination and much weaker clonality (9, 16). A low rate of recombination predicts that S. aureus CCs will be relatively stable and slow to diversify, which can help to explain their global spread. Nevertheless, it is striking that the probability that two random strains will be identical remains constant when a sample of carriage isolates from Oxford is supplemented with a sample from Mali recovered 6 years later. Under strict neutrality, the amount of diversity (heterozygosity) is predicted to be higher in large (global) populations than in small (local) populations; hence, this observation is consistent with the view that selection plays a role in the emergence and maintenance of the common CCs.

A striking exception to the pattern of global spread is the high frequency in the Malian population of a single divergent genotype, ST152. The reasons for the local predominance of this clone are unclear, but possibilities include adaptation to local abiotic (environmental) or biotic (host population) conditions, a competitive advantage against other clones, or localized transmission combined with low rates of migration. There is currently only one ST152 isolate in the MLST database, although a single locus variant of ST152 (ST377) was deposited in 2004 by Man-Suen Chan. This CA-MRSA abscess-derived isolate was recovered in 2003 from a 15-year-old female in the Limburg region of The Netherlands. Since then, ST152 has been noted sporadically among CA-MRSA PVL-positive isolates throughout Central Europe. ST152 was first observed in 2005 by Müller-Premru et al. (26), who characterized 12 highly transmissible PVL-positive CA-MRSA isolates responsible for an outbreak of soft tissue infections in members of a Slovenian football team. Eleven of these 12 isolates were ST5 isolates, while the 12th was an ST152 isolate exhibiting spa type t454. Two PVL-positive CA-MRSA (SCCmec type V) isolates recovered from patients of Kosovar origin presenting to a hospital in Switzerland were subsequently found to correspond to ST152 (13). Interestingly, the single ST152 CA-MRSA isolate present in the MLST database was recovered from a Danish patient who had recently been hospitalized in Kosovo (7), and this isolate corresponds to spa type t207.

An association with the Balkan states is further supported by a recent report by Monecke et al., who described the characterization of a number of MRSA PVL-positive isolates, including one recovered from an immigrant Macedonian child which corresponded to ST152 (23). Monecke et al. noted this strain to be agr type I and spa type t355, which was also noted in 7 out of 21 Malian ST152 isolates. More recently, Monecke et al. noted two PVL-positive MSSA ST152 isolates recovered from patients presenting with soft tissue infections at a hospital in Saxony, Germany (24). These two isolates also correspond to spa type t355. Finally, Krziwanek et al. isolated 16 PVL-positive MRSA ST152 isolates in Austria between 2001 and 2006 (18). Eleven of these isolates were recovered in 2006, and Krziwanek et al. noted that ST152 is now the second most common PVL-positive MRSA clone in Austria, after ST8 (18). In sum, although the evidence from the literature suggests that ST152 is still relatively rare, it appears to be associated with PVL-positive CA-MRSA samples, and its distribution corresponds to a South-North belt stretching across the middle of Europe, from the Balkans through Slovenia, Austria, and Saxony.

To our knowledge, every ST152 isolate recovered to date has been PVL positive, and 100% of the ST152 isolates recovered from carriage samples in Mali were also PVL positive. It is tempting to speculate from our results that the PVL-positive clone ST152 originated in Africa and has migrated northwards through the center of Europe and acquired methicillin resistance. However, a much larger sampling effort is required to confirm this, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. It would also be interesting to clarify whether the frequency of ST152 in the Malian carriage population is reflected in samples recovered from cases of disease. This would also help to ascertain the public health implications of such a high carriage rate of PVL-positive isolates. The published data reveal variation in spa types in the ST152 isolates, and this is confirmed by our spa typing data, as a total of 12 spa types were noted among the 21 ST152 isolates. Given this variation, it is perhaps surprising that no clonal variants (single locus variants) of ST152 were detected by MLST.

Finally, phylogenetic analysis reveals that ST152 is a divergent genotype which does not cluster with either of the two main S. aureus clades previously identified (4). This sheds some light on the evolutionary history of S. aureus, as the use of ST152 as an outgroup suggests that group 1, which contains the related and very common complexes CC30 and CC45, is basal (ancestral) to group 2, which contains the common MRSA clones CC5 and CC8. This is consistent with the observation that group 2 has shorter branch lengths than group 1, as noted previously (4, 31). Despite the divergence of ST152, we consider it unlikely that it represents a "proto" (ancestral) S. aureus genotype, in the sense used recently for other human pathogens (20, 25), as a preliminary analysis revealed other genotypes in the MLST database to be even more divergent (not shown). Nevertheless, the apparent 100% association between ST152 and PVL raises the possibility that this clone may represent the original lineage which acquired PVL and subsequently disseminated throughout the S. aureus population. A detailed characterization of the PVL genes in the Malian sample is currently being carried out to examine this.

We conclude that the S. aureus carriage population in Mali consists of both pandemic clones and a high frequency of the geographically restricted clone ST152. In addition to its unusual geographical restriction, the phylogenetic divergence of ST152 and its association with PVL warrant further characterization of the genotype and, ideally, full genome sequencing. We also argue that a larger sampling effort of carriage populations, particularly those from Africa and Asia, will reveal more localized diversity and provide further evidence concerning the evolution of this important human pathogen.

 
We are grateful to Nadine Richard and Patricia Lawson-Body for their technical assistance.

This work was supported in part by a grant from the Institut de Médecine et Epidemiologie Africaines (IMEA-Fondation MBA 5710AND90).

 
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Hôpital Bichat-Claude Bernard, Laboratoire de Bactériologie, 46 Rue Henri Huchard, 75018 Paris, France. Phone: 33 1 40 25 85 05. Fax: 33 1 40 25 85 81. E-mail: raymond.ruimy{at}bch.ap-hop-paris.fr

Published ahead of print on 28 March 2008.

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Journal of Bacteriology, June 2008, p. 3962-3968, Vol. 190, No. 11
0021-9193/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.01947-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

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