In addition, a commercially available
microarray kit (Identibac S. aureus Genotyping, Alere Technologies
GmbH, Jena, Germany) was applied. This array covers 333 target
sequences corresponding to approximately 185 distinct genes and
their allelic variants. These include among others species-specific
controls, genes encoding for relevant antibiotic resistance determinants
and virulence factors (SE encoding genes) as well as agr group and
capsule typing markers. The array was performed according to the
manufacturer's instructions and analysis of the array profiles based on
the presence or absence of the enquired genes was done with
Bionumerics Software