Comparative genomics analysis for human variant of livestock-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolated in Korea and Japan. Staphylococcus aureus

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been isolated not only from humans but also from livestock animals; the MRSA strains originated from livestock animals are termed as livestock-associated MRSA (LA-MRSA). Although LA-MRSA strains are considered low virulent, they can colonize and infect humans. The major genotypes of LA-MRSA are sequence types (ST) 398 and ST9 in Europe and Asia, respectively. However, patient infected by ST398 and ST9 strains has not yet been reported in Japan and Korea. Recently, two cases of infectious disease caused by ST1232 strains were reported in Japan; ST1232 is a single locus variant of ST398. Additionally, we identified two ST1232 strains in Vietnamese and Korean patients. In this project, comparative genomics analysis for those strains was conducted to investigate relationship between ST1232 strains isolated in Korea and Japan.