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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
Staphylococcus aureus is the most important cause of nosocomial and community associated infections as well as the most pronounced species in drug resistance amongst Staphylococcus species. There have been reported cases of inconsistency in presumptive coagulase tests using commercial kits and conventional methods. This study therefore reports a simple, rapid, accurate and cost-effective PCR-RFLP-based molecular technique that separates and identifies to species level S. aureus from other coagulase negative staphylococci. Fifty clinical isolates of staphylococci previously isolated from various specimens were investigated for their ability to clot blood plasma. Of the 50 clinical isolates, 6 (12%) and 44 (88%) isolates yielded positive and negative results, respectively, for conventional tube coagulase test. The PCR-RFLP supplemented with species-specific primers classified these isolates into three distinct species: S. epidermidis (86%), S. aureus (12%) and S. xylosus (2%). Furthermore, the technique applied in this study classified the isolates into two RFLP patterns representing S. aureus and other coagulase negative staphylococci which correlated with coagulase test results. Since coagulase test could be sometimes misleading and inconclusive, this method could be substituted in routine laboratory program.