Leila Rahbarnia - Infections and Tropical Diseases Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
Sahar Zeinalpour Ahrabi - Higher Education Institute of Rab-Rashid, Tabriz, Iran.
Alireza Dehnad - Biotechnology Department, East Azerbaijan Research and Education Center Agricultural and Natural Resources, AREEO, Tabriz- IRAN
Behrooz Naghili - Infections and Tropical Diseases Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.

Introduction and Objectives: Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is often the cause of wide range of infections ranging from minor skin infections to serious infections such toxic shock syndrome (TSS) in hospital and community settings. Toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 (TSST-1) super antigen is the main cause of TSS. The aim of current study is detection of methicillin resistance (mecA) and TSST-1 genes in healthy community. Materials and Methods: A total of 400 samples were obtained from the nasal of students high school schools in Tabriz. After confirmation of S. aureus strains by standard biochemical tests, the antibiotic resistance patterns were determined by the disk diffusion method. The presence of mecA and tsst-1 genes was examined by PCR reaction. Results: from 400 students, 15% (60 samples) were positive for S. aureus. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed against 12 antibiotic disks. The highest resistance rate was observed against ampicillin (100%) and the highest sensitivity was observed against vancomycin antibiotic disk. Also, 18.34% of S. aureus isolates were resistant to methicillin (MRSA) while the presence of the mecA gene was confirmed in 54.54% of cases. These results were indicating the emergence of Oxacillin susceptible mecA positive strains (OS-MRSA) for the first time in health community in IRAN. Based on PCR results, only one of isolates was positive for TSST-1 gene. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate prevalence of MRSA nasal carriages in healthy population so there is an essential need for continuous monitoring of nasal carriages in health community in order to prevent subsequent infections.

Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, mecA, Tsst-1, high school students