Staphylococcus aureus phage types in barrier-maintained colonies of SPF mice and rats.

Abstract

From 1985 to 1987 within the framework of our health monitoring programme, the occurrence of S. aureus in our rodent colonies and their caretakers have been surveyed. To obtain further information on S. aureus subtypes, isolates were subjected to phage typing using the international set of bacteriophages. Strains derived from pathological processes but also randomly chosen isolates from healthy animal carriers and the personnel underwent lysotyping. With respect to the animals every hygienic unit harbours its characteristic S. aureus lysotype(s). Among these, usually one pattern dominates in pathological processes and healthy carriers, although the spectrum of phage types distributed among the caretakers shows a much greater variation and some of the attendants are suspected to be not only transient carriers. A comparison with an earlier investigation done in our institute about a decade ago (Lenz et al. 1978) shows the prevalence of completely different phage types.