TITLE:
A New Epidemiological Tool for Staphylococcus aureus Surveillance
AUTHORS:
Stephen C. Edberg, J. Michael Miller
KEYWORDS:
MRSA, Staphylococcus aureus, Methicillin-Resistant, Epidemiology
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Microbiology,
Vol.4 No.13,
October
14,
2014
ABSTRACT: Epidemiological
surveillance for microbes is currently based on either agar culture followed by
identification, or genetic amplification. Both techniques are highly
skilled-labor intensive, costly, and must be done in central laboratories. The
Defined Substrate Utilization® (DSU®) format provides an
epidemiological series of specific screening formulations that obviate these
limitations. All reagents are present in optimized stable powder form in a test
tube—add water, inoculate, and incubate. A specific color change provides a
sensitive and specific detection of the target microbe. Two DSU® methods for Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) are presented: aureusAlert® for all S. aureus and EPI-M® for methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). Both aureusAlert® and EPI-M® had a detection
level of 20 colony forming units (CFU) in 18 hours. aureusAlert® and
conventional methods agreed 93.6% and EPI-M® and conventional
methods agreed 94.1%. DSU® and conventional methods showed the same
specificity.