GENOTYPIC DIFFERENTIATION OF S. INTERMEDIUS AND S. PSEUDINTERMEDIUS STRAINS ISOLATED FROM DOGS AND CATS

Coagulase-positive and coagulase-negative staphylococcal infections are common in both dogs and cats. Thus, staphylococci strains included in S. pseudintermedius species are frequently isolated from these species, a bacterium with zoonotic potential, which is part of the resident bacterial microflora of dogs and cats, but produces various localized infections. Twenty-five staphylococci strains isolated from dogs and cats (22 strains from dogs and 3 strains from cats), that based on phenotypic characters were included in the S. intermedius species, were subjected to the PCR technique for differentiation between these two species. Considering the fact that S. pseudintermedius is dominant in the last years and that these two species cannot be phenotypically distinguished, in this research the differentiation between it was made by the PCR technique. Using the PCR technique with two specific primers, nine staphylococci strains (36%) were included in S. intermedius species, six strains isolated from dogs and three strains isolated from cats, while 16 staphylococci strains (64%) were included in S. pseudintermedius species, all of them isolated only from dogs.