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Bridget M. Kuehn

JAMA. 2008;299(8):890.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

A single strain of bacteria gave rise to the current national epidemic of community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA), according to new research published by scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Previously, some researchers had proposed that various strains of the MRSA may have evolved to have similar characteristics. However, this study's comparison of the genomes of 10 isolates of the USA300 strain of MRSA collected from patients from across the United States revealed few major genetic changes had occurred between the isolates, suggesting that this single strain has given rise to the various isolates (Kennedy AD et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 10.1073/pnas.0710217105 [published online ahead of print January 23, 2008]).

But even small genetic changes may be allowing some of the isolates to become more virulent. When the researchers infected mice with the bacteria grown from each of the . . . [Full Text of this Article]