Multilocus Sequence Typing of Staphylococcus aureus.

Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) has been successfully used to differentiate and trace the bacterial species and pathogens that cause outbreaks or epidemics of infectious diseases. MLST provides a powerful solution for molecular epidemiological characterization of bacterial strains, including Staphylococcus aureus, by using the sequences of the internal region of seven housekeeping genes. In previous studies, we utilized MLST to analyze the genotypes of S. aureus isolates from pediatric patients with cystic fibrosis and revealed three prevalent ST types, including ST5, ST30, and ST8 in these isolates. In this chapter, we describe a detailed procedure of MLST for genotyping S. aureus.