Phylogenetic relationships of Staphylococcus aureus from bovine mastitis based on coagulase gene polymorphism.

Coagulase gene restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) patterns were analyzed to determine the phylogenetic relationship among isolates of Staphylococcus aureus from the Czech Republic (n = 27), France (n = 48), Korea (n = 115) and the United States (n = 278). A total of 468 isolates of S. aureus were subtyped into 41 coagulase genotypes. Cluster analysis placed the 41 types into nine clusters. Eighteen API Staph profiles were determined for 102 S. aureus isolates representing 1 to 4 isolates of each coagulase type. The results of the study suggest that based on coagulase gene RFLP analysis, several genetic variants of S. aureus are prevalent. Comparison of coagulase and API Staph profiles indicated that the two identification system were independent of each other.