RARE OCCURRENCE OF MUPIROCIN RESISTANCE AMONG CLINICAL STAPHYLOCOCCUS ISOLATES IN JORDAN AMIN ABDELFATTAH AQEL 1 *, ABDALLAH IBRAHIM 2 and ASEM SHEHABI 3 1 Faculty of Medicine, Mu’tah University, Al-Karak, Jordan 2 Faculty of Allied Medical Sciences, Zarqa University, Zarqa, Jordan 3 Faculty of Medicine, Jordan University, Amman, Jordan (Received: 17 November 2011; accepted: 20 March 2012) Staphylococcal infections have high occurrence in Jordanian patients. This study was carried out to determine the rates of high- and low-level mupirocin resis- tance (MupH and MupL) among staphylococci with the molecular characterization. Two hundred and thirty-two non-duplicate Staphylococcus spp. isolated from differ- ent clinical specimens were tested for mupirocin susceptibility using disk diffusion method and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). Resistance genes and clone re- latedness was studied using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and enterobacterial re- petitive intergenic consensus primers (Eric-PCR) for the latter. Plasmid curing was performed to determine the genetic location of MupA gene. Among the 232 strains, 144 (62%) were methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), 33 (14.2%) methicillin- susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) and 55 (23.7%) were of other coagulase- negative Staphylococcus spp. (CoNS). Of all strains tested, only 6 (2.6%) were mupirocin resistant. MecA gene was detected in both MupL and MupH strains but MupA gene was only detected in MupH. Plasmid curing improved the plasmidic location of MupA gene. Molecular typing by Eric-PCR method revealed hetero- genicity of the genetic make up of our MupL and MupH strains. Staphylococci with MupA-carrying genes are present in Jordanian hospitals, but thank to the limited use of mupirocin, they remain rare. Keywords: MRSA, Mupirocin, MupA, Jordan 1217-8950/$20.00 © 2012 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest Acta Microbiologica et Immunologica Hungarica, 59 (2), pp. 239–247 (2012) DOI: 10.1556/AMicr.59.2012.2.8 * Corresponding author; E-mails: aminaqel@hotmail.com or aminaq@mutah.edu.jo