Identification and isolation of staphylococcus aureus from tooth decay

Staphylococcus aureus is the most prevalent human pathogenic agent in many countries around the world. In the study, a total of 57 strains of S. aureus including 54 clinical isolates collected from some dental clinical sources in Sinop province and 3 reference strains were characterized by the phenotypic properties and the numerical analysis of whole-cell and extra-cellular protein profiles obtained by using sodium dodcyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE).According to the morphological and the physiological characteristics, all native isolates were non-motility, non-conneet to endospore forming, Gram-positive, catalase positive, coagulase positive and oxidase negative and they were consisted of S. aureus species. The susceptiblity of all strains were tested against 14 standard antibiotics by using disc diffusion procedure. In accordance with the antibiogram results, it was determined that whole strains had the highest resistance against ampicillin (83.6%) and polimixin B (43.6%). Hovewer, they were found susceptible to sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim, sefoperazone/sulbactam, vancomycin and imipenem.The numerical analysis of whole-cell protein profiles of S. aureus strains revealed 2 major clusters at similarity levels of 66.29% or above. Furthermore, the numerical analysis of extra-cellular protein profiles of the strains yielded 2 major clusters at similarity levels of 60.53% or above. In conclusion, the sudy indicated that together use of conventional methods based on the morphological and the physiological properties and the numerical analysis of whole-cell and extra-cellular protein profiles might be usefull for the more reliable identification of S. aureus strains isolated from tooth decay.Keywords: S. aureus, Tooth Decay, Isolation, Identification, Antibiogram, SDS-PAGE, Protein Profiles, Numerical Analysis