Preparation of specific probes detecting prophages of serogroups A,B and F in lysogenic strains of Staphylococcus Aureus

On the basis of HindIII-restriction digest analysis of genomic DNAs, the S. aureus bacteriophages of the International Typing Set were divided into five clusters (A, F, Ba, Bb, and Bc). For each of the phage serogoups A, B, and F, common HindIII-restriction fragments of 3A, 53 and 77 phages were used for preparation of probes specific to the phages of all serogroups. These probes enable to detect up to three different prophages in a given lysogenic strain at the same time. Restriction enzyme maps of phages 3A, 53, and 77, each representing a different serogroup, were constructed