Abstract:Objective To investigate the drug resistance and genetic background of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Methods Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) technique was introduced to identify sequence types (ST) of MRSA, SCCmec types were determined by multiplex PCR. MLST plus SCCmec typing of these strains were used for their genotyping at the same time. The susceptibility to antimicrobial agents was tested by micro-dilution method. Results Among the 67 isolates of MRSA, 63 (94.03%) isolates belonged to SCCmec type III; 6 different genotypes were detected by MLST typing which included ST88, ST121, ST221, ST82, ST239 and ST399, and 61 (91.04%) isolates belonged to ST239. Drug resistance analysis showed the MRSA strains of SCCmec type III were multi-resistant. Conclusions ST239-MRSA-SCCmec III genotype is the major epidemic strain in northern Shangdong Province, which has multiple resistance to antibiotics. MLST combined with SCCmec genotyping is a rapid and simple method of MRSA genotyping.