ABSTRACT:
Staphylococcus aureus is a major hospital and community pathogen having the aptitude to cause a wide variety of infections in humans. The ability of microorganisms to produce biofilm facilitates them to withstand the host immune response and is recognized as one factor contributing to chronic or persistent infections. It was demonstrated that the icaA encoded genes lead to the biosynthesis of polysaccharide intercellular adhesion (PIA) molecules, and may be involved in the accumulation phase of biofilm formation. Different studies have shown the decisive role of the ica gene as virulence factors in staphylococcal infections. As the ability of this pathogen to adhere on to the various biotic and abiotic surfaces would eventually help in forming biofilm. In this study we studied the presence of icaA gene by PCR, by which 10% of our isolates were positive for it. This indicates the important role played by this gene in producing biofilm.