Staphylococcal Resistance Patterns, and SCC Cassette Genes in the Nasopharyngeal Microbiota of Pregnant Women.

Antimicrobial resistance in spp. colonising the nasopharynx can create risk factors of therapeutic treatment failure or prophylaxis in pregnant women. Resistance is mostly encoded on plasmids (e.g., gene for penicillinase synthesis) or chromosomes (e.g., and for methicillin resistance). The gene is part of the chromosomal gene cassette (SCC), which is also located on the plasmid. The disc diffusion method for the selected drugs (beta-lactams, fluoroquinolones, streptogramins, aminoglicosides, macrolides, oxasolidinones, tetracyclines and other groups) was used. PCR for , and genes and SCC cassette detection and typing were performed. (54.4%) and (27.9%) were the most prevalent and showed the highest diversity of resistance profiles. The and genes were reported in 95.6%, 20.6% and 1.5% of isolates, respectively. The highest resistance was found to beta-lactams, commonly used during pregnancy. Resistance to a variety of antimicrobials, including benzylpenicillin resistance in -positive isolates, and the existence of a very high diversity of SCC cassette structures in all staphylococci selected from the nasopharyngeal microbiota of pregnant women were observed for the first time. Knowledge of the prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant staphylococci in the nasopharynx of pregnant women may be important for the appropriate treatment or prophylaxis of this group of patients.