Alberta Health Services / Calgary Laboratory Services / University of Calgary

1 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JoVE

Immunology and Infection

Multiplex PCR Assay for Typing of Staphylococcal Cassette Chromosome Mec Types I to V in Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Jo-Ann McClure-Warnier¹, John M. Conly^1,2,3,4,5, Kunyan Zhang^1,2,3,4,5

¹Centre for Antimicrobial Resistance, Alberta Health Services / Calgary Laboratory Services / University of Calgary, ²Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, University of Calgary, ³Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases, University of Calgary, ⁴Department of Medicine, University of Calgary, ⁵The Calvin, Phoebe and Joan Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases, University of Calgary

We demonstrate a simple multiplex PCR assay for quick-screening and typing of Staphylococcal Cassette Chromosome mec (SCCmec) types I-V for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and provide some of the vital steps and procedural nuances that make it successful for adapting this assay to individual laboratories.