High frequency of increased triclosan MIC among CC5 MRSA and risk of misclassification of the SCCmec into types

Abstract Background Typing of staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) elements is commonly used for studies on the molecular epidemiology of MRSA. Objectives To perform an investigation centred on uncovering the reasons for misclassification of MRSA clonal complex 5 (CC5) SCCmec type II clinical isolates in our laboratory. Methods MRSA isolates from CC5 were subjected to WGS and SCCmec typing. Results This investigation led to the discovery that the classification failure was due to an insertion of IS1272 carrying the fabI gene on a transposable element (TnSha1) that confers increased MIC to the biocide triclosan. Genomic analysis revealed that fabI was present in 25% of the CC5 MRSA isolates sampled. The frequency of TnSha1 in our collection was much higher than that observed among publicly available genomes (0.8%; n = 24/3142 CC5 genomes). Phylogenetic analyses revealed that genomes in different CC5 clades carry TnSha1 inserted in different integration sites, suggesting that this transposon has entered CC5 MRSA genomes on multiple occasions. In at least two genotypes, ST5-SCCmecII-t539 and ST5-SCCmecII-t2666, TnSha1 seems to have entered prior to their divergence. Conclusions Our work highlights an important misclassification problem of SCCmecII in isolates harbouring TnSha1 when Boye’s method is used for typing, which could have important implications for molecular epidemiology of MRSA. The importance of increased-MIC phenotype is still a matter of controversy that deserves more study given the widespread use of triclosan in many countries. Our results suggest expanding prevalence that may indicate strong selection for this phenotype.