Molecular characterization of human-colonizing Streptococcus agalactiae strains isolated from throat, skin, anal margin, and genital body sites

Streptococcus agalactiae carriage was evaluated by sampling four body sites in a group of 249 healthy individuals including both sexes and a wide range of ages; the aims were to study the population structure of colonizing strains by multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and to evaluate their diversity by serotyping, SmaI macrorestriction analysis, and PCR screening for genetic markers of highly virulent clones for neonates. The prevalences of carriage were 27% in women and 32% in men. The major positive body site was the genital tract (23% in women and 21% in men); skin, throats, and anal margins were also positive in 2%, 4%, and 14%, respectively. These human-colonizing strains belonged mostly to serotypes III (24%), Ia (21%), V (18%), and Ib (17%). Twenty-three sequence types (STs) were identified. The MLST characteristics of the strains isolated from a single anatomic site - genital (vagina [women] or from a sample of the first urination after arising from a night's sleep [men]), throat, skin, or anal margin - suggest a body site colonization specificity for particular STs: strains of STs 2, 10, 19, and 196 were isolated only from genital sites; strains of STs 1, 8, and 23 were isolated more frequently from throat florae; and strains recovered only from anal margin samples were more closely related to strains isolated from throats than to those from genital sites. Most strains of STs 1, 8, and 23 - STs that are increasingly described as being responsible for adult infections - did not carry any markers of strains virulent for neonates, suggesting that the virulence of these strains is probably associated with other genetic determinants. In addition, the genetic diversities of the strains varied between STs: STs 2, 8, 10, 23, and 196 were the most diverse; STs 1 and 19 were more homogeneous; and ST 17 strains formed three distant groups.