Coagulase gene-based typing of Staphylococcus aureus from mastitic cattle and goats from arid region in India

Staphylococcus aureus is an important pathogen and causes mastitis and many other infections in animals as well as in humans. In the present study, S. aureus isolates were investigated for any variations based on coa gene polymorphism and AluI restriction fragment length polymorphism of coa amplicons. Thirty S. aureus isolates obtained from cattle and goats with clinical mastitis were identified by their phenotypic properties and then confirmed genotypically by PCR where all the isolates produced species-specific amplicon of 1,250 bp. Amplification of the coa gene produced products of three different sizes (600, 680, or 850 bp), one specific to each isolate. The strains of S. aureus were common to both cattle and goat, but the predominance of S. aureus isolates with coa gene amplicon of 680 bp was observed in cattle and 600 bp coa gene amplicon in goats. No difference in the restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) patterns of coa amplicons with AluI endonuclease was obtained in isolates from cattle or goats, and there was limited strain variations in the region under study. The coa amplicons and RFLP patterns of isolates were similar to those recorded elsewhere.