A New Epidemiological Tool for <i>Staphylococcus aureus</i> Surveillance
- 1 Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
- 2 Microbiology Technical Services, Dunwoody, GA, USA
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.
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