Detection and characterization of international community-acquired infections by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus clones in Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre cities causing both community- and hospital-associated diseases

Community-acquired infections by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) in the absence of classic risk factors for MRSA diseases have been reported in different continents. In the article presented here, using molecular typing methods as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec typing, and multilocus sequence typing, we characterized CA-MRSA isolates from Rio Janeiro and Porto Alegre. The results indicated the presence of international CA-MRSA clones in these 2 Brazilian cities. In addition, Panton–Valentine leukocidin and a number of staphylococcal enterotoxin encoding genes were accessed in these MRSA isolates by polymerase chain reaction detection.