Staphylococcus epidermidis is a pathogen emerging worldwide as a leading cause of health care-associated infections. A standardized high-resolution typing method to document transmission and dissemination of multidrug-resistant S. epidermidis strains is needed. Our aim was to provide a core genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST) scheme for S. epidermidis to improve the international surveillance of S. epidermidis. We defined a cgMLST scheme based on 699 core genes and used it to investigate the population structure of the species and the genetic relatedness of isolates recovered from infants hospitalized in several wards of a French hospital. Our results show the long-lasting endemic persistence of S. epidermidis clones within and across wards of hospitals and demonstrate the ability of our cgMLST approach to identify and track these clones. We made the scheme publicly available through the Institut Pasteur BIGSdb server (http://bigsdb.pasteur.fr/epidermidis/). This tool should enable international harmonization of the epidemiological surveillance of multidrug-resistant S. epidermidis clones. By comparing gene distribution among infection and commensal isolates, we also confirmed the association of the mecA locus with infection isolates and of the fdh gene with commensal isolates. (This study has been registered at ClinicalTrials.gov under registration no. NCT03374371.)

中文翻译：

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基于核心基因组多位点序列分型的表皮葡萄球菌高分辨率分型研究多药耐药克隆的医院传播

表皮葡萄球菌是一种在世界范围内出现的病原体，是导致医疗保健相关感染的主要原因。需要一种标准化的高分辨率分型方法来记录耐多药表皮葡萄球菌菌株的传播和传播。我们的目标是提供一个核心基因多位点序列分（cgMLST）方案为表皮葡萄球菌，提高国际监督的表皮葡萄球菌。我们定义了一个基于 699 个核心基因的 cgMLST 方案，并用它来研究该物种的种群结构以及从一家法国医院几个病房住院的婴儿中回收的分离株的遗传相关性。我们的结果表明表皮葡萄球菌的长期流行医院病房内和病房之间的克隆，并展示了我们的 cgMLST 方法识别和跟踪这些克隆的能力。我们通过 Institut Pasteur BIGSdb 服务器 (http://bigsdb.pasteur.fr/epidermidis/) 公开了该计划。该工具应能够实现对多重耐药表皮葡萄球菌克隆的流行病学监测的国际协调。通过比较感染和共生分离株之间的基因分布，我们还证实了mecA基因座与感染分离株和fdh基因与共生分离株的关联。（本研究已在 ClinicalTrials.gov 注册，注册号为 NCT03374371。）