1. Evolutionary relationships between sporadic and epidemic strains of healthcare- associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus 
M. Hallin, O. Denis, A. Deplano, R. De Ryck, S. Crèvecoeur, S. Rottiers, R. de Mendonça, M.J. Struelens 
Clinical Microbiology and Infection 
Volume 14, Issue 7, Pages (July 2008)
DOI: /j x
Copyright © 2008 European Society of Clinical Infectious Diseases Terms and Conditions

2. Fig. 1
Maximum-parsimony (MP) tree of major epidemic and sporadic methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates (n = 36) based on the concatenated sequences of the seven fragments of housekeeping genes used for multilocus sequence typing (a) and the sequences of the seven fragments of sas genes (b). The absolute number of nucleotide differences between sequence types (STs) are indicated above the branches, and the bootstrap values are indicated below. STs represented only by epidemic isolates are in open circles; STs represented only by sporadic isolates are in closed circles; and STs represented by both epidemic and sporadic isolates are in shaded circles. Dotted line circles delineate the five major MRSA clonal complexes (CCs).
Clinical Microbiology and Infection  , DOI: ( /j x)
Copyright © 2008 European Society of Clinical Infectious Diseases Terms and Conditions

3. Fig. 2
Evolutionary patterns proposed within clonal complex (CC)5 (a) and CC8 (b). These were constructed by the addition of SCCmec type and spa type to maximum-parsimony trees based on the concatenated sequences of the 14 fragments of housekeeping genes and sas genes, by assuming the fewest changes to the trees. Large circles represent the putative ancestor. In each circle, the complete genotype of the strain is shown as follows: the pulsed-field gel electrophoresis type, the multilocus sequence typing (MLST) sequence type, the SCCmec type, the MLST profile, the sas gene profile and the spa type. Arrows indicate the changes between strains, and dotted arrows indicate an alternative evolutionary hypothesis. Epidemic isolates are in open circles; sporadic isolates are in shaded circles. Closed circles represent evolutionary steps not included in this isolate sample. pUB110 indicates the loss or gain of plasmid pUB110 inside the SCCmec element.
Clinical Microbiology and Infection  , DOI: ( /j x)
Copyright © 2008 European Society of Clinical Infectious Diseases Terms and Conditions

4. Fig. 3
Doubling time of epidemic (n = 16) and sporadic (n = 16) isolates. The diamonds indicate the mean of each group and the 95% CI around the mean. The notched lines indicate the corresponding percentile range.
Clinical Microbiology and Infection  , DOI: ( /j x)
Copyright © 2008 European Society of Clinical Infectious Diseases Terms and Conditions