| Summary: | Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) may be considered contaminants when isolated from clinical specimens but may also be a cause of true infection. This study aimed to compare the clonality and SCC<i>mec</i> type of a collection of CoNS isolated from blood cultures of inpatients, nasal swabs of healthy individuals, and patients with chronic wounds, all from the same community, using SCC<i>mec</i> typing, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), and MLST. <i>Staphylococcus epidermidis</i>, exhibited high clonal diversity, but hospital and community clusters were observed. Nosocomial <i>S. epidermidis</i> clones belonged to sequence types ST2, ST6, and ST23. Some <i>Staphylococcus haemolyticus</i> clones were found to circulate in the hospital and community, while <i>Staphylococcus saprophyticus</i> exhibited very high clonal diversity. <i>Staphylococcus lugdunensis</i>, <i>Staphylococcus warneri</i>, and <i>Staphylococcus capitis</i> revealed several isolates belonging to the same clone in the hospital and community. The detection of different SCC<i>mec</i> types within the same cluster indicated high diversity. <i>S. epidermidis</i> was associated with SCC<i>mec</i> I and III, <i>S. haemolyticus</i> with I and II, <i>S. capitis</i> with type V, <i>Staphylococcus hominis</i> with <i>mec</i> complex type A and <i>ccr1</i>, and <i>S. warneri</i> and <i>S. saprophyticus</i> with SCC<i>mec</i> I. The generation of elements and new combinations of cassette genes were highly associated with CoNS isolates, suggesting that SCC<i>mec</i> may not be a good marker of clonality in these bacteria.
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