Staphylococcus aureus is a versatile pathogen that can survive in diverse host environments and produce a wide range of diseases both in humans and animals. This versatility depends on its ability to modulate gene expression and the synthesis of virulence determinants. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the distribution of bacterial virulence determinants in the most prevalent S. aureus strain types causing lesions in rabbits. Sixty-nine S. aureus strains were isolated from rabbit does with
different chronic purulent lesions from 30 Spanish industrial rabbitries. Genotyping characterization of the strains was performed based on the analysis of the polymorphic regions of the coa, spa and clfB genes, as well as Multylocus Sequence Typing (MLST) on one strain of each of the most frequent genotypes. The isolates were also analyzed for the presence of forty virulence genes by PCRs and Southern blot, in order to determine their relationship with the genotype and the type of infection respectively. The great majority of isolates belonging to the same genotype were related to the same virulence factors, even though certain virulence factors were variable inside a genotype. However, the type of infection could not be related to any combination of virulence factors
