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How clonal is Staphylococcus aureus?

Edward J Feil1, Jessica E Cooper, Hajo Grundmann

  • 1Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, United Kingdom. e.feil@bath.ac.uk

Journal of Bacteriology
|May 20, 2003
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus evolution is driven more by point mutations than recombination, with no evidence of hypervirulent clones in patient or carrier populations. Purifying selection may act slowly on deleterious mutations.

Area of Science:

  • Microbiology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Genetics

Background:

  • Staphylococcus aureus is a significant human pathogen, with rising antibiotic resistance posing a public health threat.
  • Fundamental questions regarding the evolutionary dynamics and population biology of S. aureus, especially the role of homologous recombination, remain unresolved.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the evolutionary mechanisms and population structure of Staphylococcus aureus.
  • To determine the relative contributions of mutation and recombination to genetic diversity.
  • To assess the existence of hypervirulent clones and the impact of selection.

Main Methods:

  • Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) was performed on 334 S. aureus isolates from a defined population over a specific period.
  • Sequence data from MLST loci were analyzed to compare mutation and recombination rates.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Phylogenetic analysis was employed to infer evolutionary relationships and recombination's long-term impact.

    • Main Results:

    • No significant difference in MLST genotypes was observed between isolates from carriers and patients with invasive disease, refuting hypervirulent clone existence based on core genome variation.
    • Point mutations generated new alleles at least 15-fold more frequently than homologous recombination in S. aureus.
    • Phylogenetic analyses indicated that homologous recombination plays a role in the long-term evolution of S. aureus.

    Conclusions:

    • The study found that point mutation is the primary driver of allele change in the core genome of S. aureus, unlike other naturally transformable bacteria.
    • Despite the dominance of mutation, homologous recombination contributes to the species' long-term evolutionary trajectory.
    • An excess of nonsynonymous substitutions within clonal complexes suggests slow removal of deleterious mutations by purifying selection.