The human origins of "pig" Staph ST398 : Aetiology.
According to a new study (open access in mBio), it seems that there has been more sharing of ST398 than we'd realized. Led by Lance Price at TGEN (full disclosure--I'm a coauthor on the paper), his group analyzed 89 ST398 isolates from China, Europe, and North America, including isolates from humans and animals as well as both methicillin-susceptible and -resistant strains. Using whole genomic sequence typing, the evolutionary history of these isolates was reconstructed. The findings throw the ST398 story a bit on its head. Instead of being a true pig strain, ST398 appears to have originated as a methicillin-susceptible human strain which was transferred into the pig population, picked up antibiotic resistance genes (including resistance to methicillin and tetracyclines), and then has been passed back to farmers as more resistant organisms. Some prophages were also gained or lost along the way, probably due to selection by host factors.
