The methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus causes difficult-to-treat healthcare-associated infections in humans. For fast and effective selection of an appropriate antibiotic therapy, it is essential to have rapid and reliable methods for differentiation of methicillin-resistant S. aureus from less dangerous methicillin-sensitive S. aureus. There have been many methods for the identification of methicillin-resistant S. aureus described but none has been accepted as an international standard. The most commonly used techniques such as phenotyping and genotyping have a few disadvantages, for instance, these techniques are not reproducible and stable. In addition, they are time-consuming, expensive, and they are not capable to distinguish all S. aureus strains. In this study, the methicillin-resistant and methicillin-sensitive S. aureus isolates obtained from patients were extracted in hot water. The released proteins were characterised by sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and gel isoelectric focusing. These two methods were able to differentiate among tested bacterial strains. The proposed methods are time saving, they are applicable in standard biochemical laboratories, and they do not require any expensive equipment.

Institute of Analytical Chemistry of the CAS v v i Veveří 97 602 00 Brno Czech Republic

The Department of Microbiology Faculty of Medicine Masaryk University Kamenice 53 5 625 00 Brno Czech Republic

The Department of Microbiology Faculty of Medicine Masaryk University Kamenice 53 5 625 00 Brno Czech Republic The Department of Microbiology St Anne's University Hospital Brno Pekařská 53 602 00 Brno Czech Republic

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