Table 1.

Strains and plasmids

Strain/plasmid	Relevant genotype or phenotypea	Source/reference
S. aureus strains
SA137/93A	Clinical hVISA isolate; METr, Northern German epidemic MRSA, MLST sequence type ST247	[4]
SA137/93G	Mutant VISA of SA137/93A; ΔSCCmec (METs), ST247	[4,27]
SA137/93G pCapDvorne	SA137/93G carrying pCapDvorne (CHLr)	This work
Mu50	Clinical VISA isolate	[29]
SA1450/94	Northern German epidemic MRSA, Iberian clone, ST247, CP5 positive, VANs control	German reference centre for staphylococci, Wernigerode
SA1450/94 pCapAre	SA1450/94, repair of cap5A	This work
SA1450/94 pCU1	SA1450/94, control (empty vector)	This work
Newman	CP5 positive, VANs	NCTC8178
Newman-132	pMUTIN integrated into capsule promoter	This work
NCTC8325 (RN1)	laboratory strain	National collection of type cultures
HG001	NCTC8325, repaired in rsbU	[31]
HG001 pCap5E	HG001 capsule production repaired	This work
SG511-Berlin	sensitive antibiotic screening strain	[32]
RN4220	Restriction negative derivative of NCTC8325, cloning host	[33]
Plasmids
pUC19gyrB	pUC19, carrying a 560 bp internal fragment of gyrB; external plasmid standard for real time PCR	This work
pCU1cap5E	pCU1 (Augustin), carrying cap5E; external plasmid standard for real time PCR	This work
pCapDvorne	pEPSA5 (Forsythe) harbouring a cap5D antisense fragment	This work
pCapAre	pCU1 harbouring cap5A	[34]
pCap5E	pCU1 harbouring cap5E	[34]
pCG132	pMUTIN4 (Vagner 1998) habouring cap5A	This work

^aAbbreviations: CP, capsular polysaccharides; CHL, chloramphenicol; MET, methicillin; VAN, vancomycin; r, resistant; s, susceptible.