ABSTRACT
<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>Increasing prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), particularly methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) has been reported in China. In this study, we investigated the drug resistance characteristic, genetic background, and molecular epidemiological characteristic of S. aureus in Changsha.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Between January 2006 and December 2008, 293 clinical isolates of S. aureus were collected from 11 hospitals in Changsha and identified by the Vitek-2 system. All the isolates were verified as MRSA by PCR amplification of both femA and mecA genes. K-B disk method was used to test drug sensitivity of S. aureus to antibiotics. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was performed for genotypic and homologous analysis of 115 isolates randomly selected from the original 293 clinical S. aureus isolates.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>S. aureus was highly resistant to penicillin, ampicillin, erythromycin, and clindamycin with resistant rates of 96.6%, 96.6%, 77.1%, and 67.2% respectively. All the isolates were susceptible to tecoplanin, vancomycin, and linezolid. MRSA accounted for 64.8% (190/293) of all the S. aureus strains. The 115 S. aureus isolates were clustered into 39 PFGE types by PFGE typing, with 13 predominant patterns (designated types A to M) accounting for 89 isolates. The most prevalent PFGE type was type A (n = 56, 48.7%) and 100.0% of type A strains were MRSA. PFGE type A included 13 subtypes, and the most prevalent subtype was subtype A1 (46.4%, 26/56). Strains with PFGE type A were isolated from eight hospitals (8/11), and both subtypes A1 and A4 strains were isolated in a university hospital.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>Clinical isolates of S. aureus in Changsha were resistant to multiple traditional antibiotics. There was an outbreak of PFGE type A MRSA in this area and the A1 subtype was the predominant epidemic clone. Dissemination of the same clone was an important reason for the wide spread of MRSA.</p>