OBJECTIVE To investigate antibiotic resistance and genetic relatedness of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolated in a general hospital in Kuwait over a period from 1996 to 1998 and 2001. MATERIAL AND METHODS The isolates were characterized by antibacterial susceptibility testing, coagulase serotyping, coagulase gene polymorphism (coag-RFLP) and pulsed-field gel electropho...

A method has been described for the study in vitro of leucocyte-bacteria interactions which permits the simultaneous evaluation of both phagocytosis and intracellular bacterial inactivation. Employing this technique, the fate and localization of staphylococci in homogeneous suspensions of rabbit polymorphonuclear leucocytes have been studied. Coagulase-positive strains of S. aureus were not eff...

BACKGROUND Otitis externa is a common inflammatory ear disease in dogs caused by a variety of pathogens, and coagulase-positive staphylococci are frequently isolated from such infections. OBJECTIVE To identify antimicrobial susceptibility profiles and methicillin-resistant strains among coagulase-positive staphylococci isolated from otitis externa in dogs. METHODS A cross-sectional study wa...

BACKGROUND Subinhibitory levels of clarithromycin and azithromycin have been shown to reduce the activity of bacterial virulence factors, but few studies have examined the effects of subinhibitory levels of telithromycin. Here, we examined the effects of telithromycin, clarithromycin and azithromycin on methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) coagulase in vitro. We also examined the ...

One hundred and thirty two Bacillus cereus and 52 Bacillus megaterium isolates from honeys were evaluated for the presence of genes encoding enterotoxin HBL, enterotoxin-T, cytotoxin K and the NHE complex, respectively. The relationship between hemolytic and coagulase activity and its correlation with the presence of the four mentioned enterotoxins was determined by principal component analysis...

BACKGROUND Staphylococcus aureus is often responsible for fatal infections and recent upsurge of resistant strains has resulted in therapeutic failure. The identification of this microorganism is a major challenge to medical microbiologists in developing countries. METHODS One hundred and eighty five isolates which had been previously isolated from the nares of 185 healthy college students' v...

The performance characteristics of the E-test (AB Biodisk, Solna, Sweden), the ATB Staph, the Rapid ATB Staph, and the Vitek GPS-503 card (bioMérieux, La Balme Les Grottes, France) methods for the detection of oxacillin resistance in a collection of staphylococci with a high proportion of troublesome strains were evaluated. Sixty-four Staphylococcus aureus strains and 76 coagulase-negative stap...