Molecular typing of S.aureus with Double Locus Sequence Typing (DLST)

Double Locus Sequence Typing (DLST) is a new sequence based typing method for Staphylococcus aureus which was developed in our laboratory. It has been designed with the goal to replace PFGE, a comparative gel based method, which is currently considered the best typing method. It is based on 500 bp sequences of two highly variable genes, clfB and spa. As an advantage over PFGE, DLST allows a definitive attribution of a type to the analysed strains.

DLST data should be considered similar to MLST (multilocus sequence typing) data: each allele of the two loci are labelled with a number, however, unlike for MLST, the labelling of a type is the allelic profile (e.g. type "2-36" is the type for which the clfB allele is the number 2, and the spa allele is the number 36).

The description of the method and its validation was poublished in JCM 2007, 1:54-62.

To help other laboratories to use this method and compared their results with our, we give you the following documents:

• the step by step laboratory protocole from our lab (in French!) and now also in English
• the list of all clfB and spa alleles so far identified (last update: December 18, 2008) with the relation between spa alleles and spa ridom types.

We are open to collaboration, just contact Dominique Blanc.

Publications

• Kuhn G, Francioli P, Blanc DS. Double-locus sequence typing using clfB and spa, a fast and simple method for epidemiological typing of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. J Clin Microbiol. 2007 Jan;45(1):54-62. PMID: 17093014

Dernière modification le 19.01.2010