Staphylococcus Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Staphylococcus, including details on mrsa, hospitals, infection, antibiotic resistance, superbugs.

Emergence and resurgence of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus as a public-health threat.

Grundmann H, Aires-de-Sousa M, Boyce J, Tiemersma E

Centre for Infectious Diseases Epidemiology, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.

Staphylococcus aureus is a gram-positive bacterium that colonises the skin and is present in the anterior nares in about 25-30% of healthy people. Dependent on its intrinsic virulence or the ability of the host to contain its opportunistic behaviour, S aureus can cause a range of diseases in man. The bacterium readily acquires resistance against all classes of antibiotics by one of two distinct mechanisms: mutation of an existing bacterial gene or horizontal transfer of a resistance gene from another bacterium. Several mobile genetic elements carrying exogenous antibiotic resistance genes might mediate resistance acquisition. Of all the resistance traits S aureus has acquired since the introduction of antimicrobial chemotherapy in the 1930s, meticillin resistance is clinically the most important, since a single genetic element confers resistance to the most commonly prescribed class of antimicrobials--the beta-lactam antibiotics, which include penicillins, cephalosporins, and carbapenems.

Published 4 September 2006 in Lancet, 368(9538): 874-85.
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