Staphylococcus

Krishna: Staphylococcus species are Gram Positive cocci (spherical) bacteria belonging to the Micrococcaceae family. Members of this family inhabit the skin and mucous membranes of mammals and birds.

Under a microscope, staphylococcus bacteria are round and bunched together. The bacterium got it s name from the Greek staphyle (bunch of grapes) and kokkos (berry). (1)

Staphylococcus

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They can cause illness directly by infection or indirectly through products they make, such as the toxins responsible for food poisoning and toxic shock syndrome. The best-known member of the staphylococcus family is Staphylococcus aureus. A drug resistant form of Staphylococcus aureus is called MRSA (methicillin resistant Staph. aureus). Staphylococci are the main culprits in hospital-acquired infections, and they cause thousands of deaths every year.

It is the leading cause of skin and soft tissue infections such as abscesses (boils), furuncles, and cellulitis. Although most staph infections are not serious, S. aureus can cause serious infections such as bloodstream infections, pneumonia, or bone and joint infections.

S. aureus isolates 174 (38.6%) were found to be MRSA. MRSA is considered a type of "superbug," because it has become resistant to antibiotics commonly used to treat it. Those antibiotics include methicillin, from which it gets its name, and also penicillin, amoxicillin, and oxacillin and possibly others. In those isolates, high resistance was found to Cefixime (100%) Doxicycline (100%) Oxacillin (96.5%) Gentamicin, (96.3%), Timethoprim/Sulfametoxazole (95.6%) Chloramphenicol (93%) Tobramicin (81.03%), Ofloxacin (72.4%) and Ciprofloxacin (63.7%).

Staphylococcus aureus is fairly small, even by bacterial standards. It's about 40 times smaller than the width of a human hair. It's four times smaller than your red blood cells. It takes a highly magnified microscope to see it at all.

S. aureus appears when growing on agar medium as small, round golden clumps or colonies. When Gram-stained and viewed with a microscope, they appear arranged like clusters of grapes. It gets its name, aureus, from its golden color—an aureus was a gold coin in Ancient Rome. Between and around the round bacterium are thread-like connections of biofilm. Biofilm helps protect the bacterium and increases its chances of causing infections.

In 1880, Scottish surgeon Sir Alexander Ogston first described staphylococci in pus from a surgical abscess in a knee joint: “the masses looked like bunches of grapes.” In 1884, German physician Friedrich Julius Rosenbach differentiated the bacteria by the color of their colonies: S. aureus (from the Latin aurum, gold) and S. albus (Latin for white). S. albus was later renamed S. epidermidis because of its ubiquity on human skin. (1)

Footnotes:

1. Etymologia: Staphylococcus