Identification and Characterization of Staphylococcus aureus 16s rRNA Gene Isolate from Environmental and Clinical Sources

One of the most well-known and widespread bacterial pathogens, Staphylococcus aureus, causes hundreds of thousands to millions of more harmful, invasive infections each year in addition to an unusual number of uncomplicated skin infections.

A total number of 168 clinical and environmental samples of Staphylococcus aureus were characterized by morphological, microscopical and biochemical testing and VITEK® 2 Compact. All identified clinical isolates were 100% resistant to Penicillin and also highly resistant to Erythromycin 97.5% and higher sensitivity to Chloramphenicol 95%. Environmental isolates were 100% resistant to penicillin and 65% to erythromycin; the ciprofloxacin had a higher sensitivity percentage of 100%. Environmental isolates showed 80% multidrug resistance, while clinical isolates showed 100%.

All the identified isolates were subjected to detection of nuc and 16S rRNA genes using PCR and all isolates were found to harbor nuc and 16S rRNA genes. By using the nucleotide sequence of the 16S rRNA gene region, two new local isolates were obtained and registered in GenBank. Blast Tool in the Geneious software was used to draw Distance Tree. A novel local strain of S. aureus isolated from clinical sources (MIM2022) was genetically closely associated with a novel local strain of S. aureus isolated from environmental sources (MIM2023); based on genetic distance, clinical isolate (MIM2022) was genetically homologous with environmental isolate (MIM2023), indicating that environmental and clinical isolates likely belong to the same strain. Studies show that isolates of S. aureus can move between different niches.