The turnover of strains in intermittent and persistent nasal carriers of 
Staphylococcus aureus

Ritchie, S. R.; Isdale, E.; Priest, P.; Rainey, P. B.; Thomas, M. G.

doi:10.1016/j.jinf.2015.12.010

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Add to Basket

Release HistoryDetailsSummary

Released

Journal Article

The turnover of strains in intermittent and persistent nasal carriers of Staphylococcus aureus

MPS-Authors

/persons/resource/persons56872

Rainey, P. B.
External Scientific Member Group Experimental and Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Society;

External Resource

No external resources are shared

Fulltext (restricted access)

There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.

Fulltext (public)

Ritchie_et_al_2016.pdf
(Publisher version), 653KB

Supplementary Material (public)

There is no public supplementary material available

Citation

Ritchie, S. R., Isdale, E., Priest, P., Rainey, P. B., & Thomas, M. G. (2016). The turnover of strains in intermittent and persistent nasal carriers of Staphylococcus aureus. The Journal of Infection, 72(3), 295-301. doi:10.1016/j.jinf.2015.12.010.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0029-C355-0

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to examine the dynamics of Staphylococcus aureus nasal carriage in healthy adults. METHOD: Selected S. aureus strains isolated from weekly nasal swabs obtained from 122 healthy young adults over a 13 week period were spa typed. RESULTS: The median duration of intermittent carriage was 4 weeks (IQR 2-6) and the median interval between episodes of carriage of different spa types was 3.5 weeks (IQR 2.25-4). 6/19 (32%) Persistent carriers were colonised with more than one spa type during the study, and in two persistent carriers a brief period of mixed colonisation with two spa types was observed. Even when the carriage strain changed, it was very rare for persistent carriers to have a period during which they were culture-negative (only 6/188 (3%) swabs submitted by persistent carriers failed to culture S. aureus). CONCLUSIONS: Our results imply that at least every eight weeks a healthy young adult is exposed to S. aureus sufficient to cause a new episode of carriage among intermittent carriers. Persistent carriers are almost always colonised with S. aureus and over the course of a year there will be at least one replacement of the dominant strain.