Molecular detection of nine antibiotic resistance genes in methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates

This study aimed to evaluate the relation between the phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility patterns and the antibiotic resistance genes and to investigate the prevalence of macrolide, lincosamides, streptogramin, aminoglycoside and tetracycline resistance genes among MRSA isolates. A total of 55 clinical MRSA isolates were included in this study, antibiotic resistance was conducted by Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method, broth microdilution assay and multiplex PCR technique. Our results showed that there was no discordance between conventional susceptibility testing and gene detection by multiplex PCR assay. The prevalence of erm(A), erm(C), tetK, tetM, aacA-aphD, vat(A), vat(B) and vat(C) gene among MRSA isolates was 30.9%, 74.5%, 76.4%, 16.4%, 74.5%, 1.8%, 0% and 5.5%, respectively. These MRSA strains belonged to SCCmec types II, III, IVa and V. Rapid and reliable method for antibiotic susceptibility is important to determine the appropriate therapy decision. Multiplex PCR can be used for confirmation of the results obtained by disk diffusion method or could be used as an alternative diagnostic method in the routine diagnosis for rapid, sensitive, and specific detection of MRSA associated antibiotic resistance genes.