WHOLE GENOME SEQUENCING OF METHICILLIN RESISTANT STAPHYLOCOCCUS SCIURI ISOLATED FROM A SHENANDOAH VALLEY WATERWAY

The genus Staphylococcus is comprised of 41 known species of which 18 are potential human pathogens. Most of the research on Staphylococcus focuses on isolates from clinical settings due to its colonization of mammals and also because of potentially life-threatening infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus, particularly its highly oxacillin/methicillin resistant form (MRSA). Even though Staphylococcus species have been detected in grocery meats and salt-water environments, they have rarely been detected in freshwaters. Eleven Staphylococcus isolates were previously isolated from sediment samples collected from Muddy Creek, a freshwater stream located in Hinton, Virginia. Ten out of the eleven isolates were resistant to oxacillin/methicillin and isolate PS-05 was identified as Staphylococcus sciuri. Our goal was to construct and evaluate a draft assembly of the PS-05 genome using sequence data from both the MiniSeq (Illumina, Inc., San Diego, CA) and MinION (Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Oxford, UK). The short, accurate Illumina reads and long, less-accurate MinION reads were used to generate a hybrid assembly consisting of a single, circular contig representing the entire S. sciuri chromosome and a smaller, circular contig representing a plasmid. The mecA gene, which confers resistance to oxacillin and methicillin, was detected in the genome despite our previous inability to amplify the gene using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Further genomic analysis also revealed additional drug resistance genes. The discovery of multiple antibiotic resistance genes in Staphylococcus sciuri could give insight into the evolution of resistance in other more pathogenic Staphylococcus species, such as Staphylococcus aureus.

Additional Abstract Information


Student(s): Raechel Davis, William Maza

Department: Biology

Faculty Advisor: Dr. James Herrick

Type: Poster

Year: 2019

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