Background: Antibiotic-dependent pathogenic bacteria are sporadically isolated from patients that received prolonged antibiotic treatments. Evolution of antibiotics dependence and its clinical implications are scarcely studied. Materials & methods: A linezolid-dependent Staphylococcus aureus strain was isolated from a cystic fibrosis patient. A draft genome sequence was obtained and searched for known antibiotics resistance determinants and virulence factors. Results: The genome was assembled into 79 contigs for a total of 2.83 Mbp. This strain is a sequence type 5 methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus with a type I SCCmec cassette also conserving the Panton-Valentine leukocidin. The G2576T substitution, conferring linezolid resistance, was harbored by all five copies of the 23S rRNA. Conclusion: The linezolid-dependent strain is related to a strain circulating in Latin America that acquired a mutation conferring linezolid resistance.
Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus; antibiotic dependence; cystic fibrosis; genome sequencing; linezolid resistance.