Evolutionary Origin of the Staphylococcal Cassette Chromosome mec (SCCmec).

Rolo, Joana; Worning, Peder; Nielsen, Jesper Boye; Bowden, Rory; Bouchami, Ons; Damborg, Peter; Guardabassi, Luca; Perreten, Vincent; Tomasz, Alexander; Westh, Henrik; de Lencastre, Hermínia; Miragaia, Maria (2017). Evolutionary Origin of the Staphylococcal Cassette Chromosome mec (SCCmec). Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy, 61(6), e02302-16. American Society for Microbiology 10.1128/AAC.02302-16

[img] Text
Antimicrob. Agents Chemother.-2017-Rolo-.pdf - Published Version
Restricted to registered users only
Available under License Publisher holds Copyright.

Download (1MB) | Request a copy

Several lines of evidence indicate that the most primitive staphylococcal species, those of the Staphylococcus sciuri group, were involved in the first stages of evolution of the staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec), the genetic element carrying the β-lactam resistance gene mecA However, many steps are still missing from this evolutionary history. In particular, it is not known how mecA was incorporated into the mobile element SCC prior to dissemination among Staphylococcus aureus and other pathogenic staphylococcal species. To gain insights into the possible contribution of several species of the Staphylococcus sciuri group to the assembly of SCCmec, we sequenced the genomes of 106 isolates, comprising S. sciuri (n = 76), Staphylococcus vitulinus (n = 18), and Staphylococcus fleurettii (n = 12) from animal and human sources, and characterized the native location of mecA and the SCC insertion site by using a variety of comparative genomic approaches. Moreover, we performed a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis of the genomes in order to understand SCCmec evolution in relation to phylogeny. We found that each of three species of the S. sciuri group contributed to the evolution of SCCmec: S. vitulinus and S. fleurettii contributed to the assembly of the mec complex, and S. sciuri most likely provided the mobile element in which mecA was later incorporated. We hypothesize that an ancestral SCCmec III cassette (an element carried by one of the most epidemic methicillin-resistant S. aureus clones) originated in S. sciuri possibly by a recombination event in a human host or a human-created environment and later was transferred to S. aureus.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathobiology (DIP) > Institute of Veterinary Bacteriology > Molecular Bacterial Epidemiology and Infectiology
05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathobiology (DIP)
05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathobiology (DIP) > Institute of Veterinary Bacteriology

UniBE Contributor:

Perreten, Vincent

Subjects:

500 Science
500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology

ISSN:

0066-4804

Publisher:

American Society for Microbiology

Language:

English

Submitter:

Vincent Perreten

Date Deposited:

10 Apr 2018 09:22

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:08

Publisher DOI:

10.1128/AAC.02302-16

PubMed ID:

28373201

Uncontrolled Keywords:

SCCmec beta-lactam resistance evolution mecA staphylococci

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.107229

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/107229

Actions (login required)

Edit item Edit item
Provide Feedback