Distinguishing deadly staph bacteria from harmless strains

To better understand the pathogenic bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and develop more effective treatments, researchers examined the Staph "pan-genome" -- the genomes of 64 different strains that differ in where they live, the types of hosts they infect and their antibiotic resistance profiles. This effort places all Staph genes into one of two categories: the core genome or the dispensable genome.