MRSA clinical isolates harboring a <i>psm-mec</i> mutation produce high amounts of PSMα3.

Abstract

<p>Nucleotide sequences of <i>psm-mec</i> genes of 325 MRSA isolates were determined (<a href="http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.ppat.1003269#ppat-1003269-t001" target="_blank"><b>Table 1</b></a>). MRSA strains harboring intact <i>psm-mec</i> (Intact), -7T>C-mutated <i>psm-mec</i> (-7T>C), or no <i>psm-mec</i> (Absence) were cultured for 15 h. The amounts of PSMα3 in the culture supernatants were measured. The vertical axis represents the relative amount of PSMα3 against that of Newman strain. Closed circles represent the amounts of PSMα3 of each MRSA strains, which are the means from two independent experiments. Magenta lines represent the averaged amount of PSMα3 of each MRSA groups. Cyan dotted line represents the amount of PSMα3 of CA-MRSA strain FRP3757 (USA300). Student t-test P-values are presented. ND, not detected.</p