1.Distribution of virulence genes in clinical isolates of hospital-associated and community-associated methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus from Terengganu, Malaysia
Che Hamzah, A.M. ; Yeo, C.C. ; Puah, S.M. ; Chua, K.H. ; A. Rahman, N.I. ; Ismail, S. ; Abdullah, F.H. ; Othman, N. ; Chew, C.H.
Tropical Biomedicine 2024;41(No.2):149-156
Staphylococcus aureus is a common bacterial pathogen known to cause various kinds of infections due to
its repertoire of virulence factors. This study aimed to investigate the distribution of 19 types of virulence
genes among clinical isolates of methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) using the polymerase chain
reaction. A total of 109 MSSA isolates, i.e., 63 hospital-associated (HA) and 46 community-associated (CA)
were collected from Hospital Sultanah Nur Zahirah, the main tertiary hospital in Terengganu, Malaysia,
from July 2016 to June 2017. The most frequent virulence genes detected were hla (78.9%, n=86) and
hld (78.0%, n=85) encoding hemolysins, lukED (56.9%, n=62) encoding leukotoxin ED, followed by seb
(26.6%, n=29) and sea (24.8%, n=27) encoding enterotoxins. Among 34 (31.2%) isolates carrying six
or more virulence genes, only five were multidrug resistant (MDR) while the remaining isolates were
susceptible. Significant associations were discovered between the hld gene with CA-MSSA (p=0.016) and
the seo gene with HA-MSSA (p=0.023). However, there is no significant association between virulence
genes among the different types of infection. The clinical MSSA isolates in Terengganu showed high
prevalence and high diversity of virulence gene carriage.