Vancomycin MICs (V-MIC) and the frequency of heteroresistant vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus (hVISA) isolates are increasing among methicillin (meticillin)-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates, but their relevance remains uncertain. We compared the V-MIC (Etest) and the frequency of hVISA (Etest macromethod) for all MRSA blood isolates saved over an 11-year span and cor...

BACKGROUND Heteroresistant vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus (hVISA) infections are emerging, but their clinical significance remains unclear. Our objective was to compare patients who had hVISA bacteremia with patients who had methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) bacteremia. METHODS A total of 27 case patients with hVISA bacteremia were compared with 223 control patients with M...

Loss of agr function, vancomycin exposure, and abnormal autolysis have been linked with both development of the GISA phenotype and low-level resistance in vitro to thrombin-induced platelet microbicidal proteins (tPMPs). We examined the potential in vitro interrelationships among these parameters in well-characterized, isogenic laboratory-derived and clinical Staphylococcus aureus isolates. The...

One hundred methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains, isolated between 1983 and 1999, were tested alongside the vancomycin hetero-resistant S. aureus (hVRSA) strain Mu 3, and vancomycin-resistant S. aureus (VRSA) strain Mu 50, for their resistance to vancomycin. This was achieved using the screening method described by Hiramatsu, gradient plates, agar incorporation, standard E...

Vancomycin (VAN)-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus (VISA) and heterogeneous VISA (hVISA) isolates are considered to have emerged from VAN-susceptible S. aureus (VSSA) by spontaneous mutation during VAN exposure. We previously reported that laboratory mutant H14, obtained from VSSA strain Delta IP by exposure to imipenem (IPM), showed overexpression of the vraSR two-component system and a typic...

The majority of infections with glycopeptide intermediate-level resistant Staphylococcus aureus (GISA) originate in biomedical devices, suggesting a possible increased ability of these strains to produce biofilm. Loss of function of the accessory gene regulator (agr) of S. aureus has been suggested to confer an enhanced ability to bind to polystyrene. We studied agr in GISA, hetero-GISA, and re...

Telavancin displays potent in vitro and in vivo activity against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), including strains with reduced susceptibility to vancomycin. We compared the efficacies of telavancin and vancomycin against MRSA strains with vancomycin MICs of ≥1 μg/ml in a neutropenic murine lung infection model. Thirteen clinical MRSA isolates (7 vancomycin-susceptible, 2 va...

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) usually harbors a vancomycin-susceptible phenotype (VSSA) but can exhibit reduced vancomycin susceptibility phenotypes that can be heterogeneous-intermediate (hVISA), intermediate (VISA), or fully resistant (VRSA). Current detection techniques (e.g., Etest and population analysis profiles [PAPs]) are slow and time-consuming. We investigated the...

Emerging resistance threatens the usefulness of linezolid for the treatment of severe infections caused by multidrug-resistant gram-positive bacteria. Optimal pharmacokinetic (PK)/pharmacodynamic (PD) indices have been described for the antimicrobial efficacy of linezolid (area under the concentration-time curve over 24 h at steady state divided by the MIC, >100; the cumulative percentage of a ...

Intravenous vancomycin was approved in 1991 in Japan and has been widely used for treatment of infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Consequently, ever since the initial discovery of vancomycin intermediate-resistant S. aureus in Japan, the vancomycin resistance of this organism has been a great concern in clinical settings. We investigated whether vancomycin ...