Isoenzyme analysis of Pseudomonas cepacia as an epidemiologic tool.
Multilocus enzyme electrophoresis has successfully been used to establish basic marker systems for the epidemiologic analysis of a variety of bacterial pathogens. This study was done to determine the efficacy of this technique for characterizing Pseudomonas cepacia, using 31 known-related strains isolated during an outbreak of infections involving intrinsically contaminated povidone-iodine solution, and five outbreak-unrelated strains used in serotyping of P. cepacia. Crude cell extracts were analyzed by starch gel electrophoresis for electrophoretic variants using 13 enzyme substrates; esterase bands were detected using an additional four substrates. The 31 outbreak strains had identical isoenzyme patterns for all enzymes examined. Five electrophoretic types were obtained for the serotyping strains; electrophoretic mobilities of one of the five strains corresponded to the patterns obtained for the outbreak strains. These results suggest that enzyme electrophoretic typing may be a useful adjunct to other typing methods used in epidemiologic analyses of P. cepacia infections.
Carson
L A
LA
Nosocomial Infections Laboratory Branch, Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia 30333.
Anderson
R L
RL
Panlilio
A L
AL
Beck-Sague
C M
CM
Miller
J M
JM
D016956:Burkholderia cepacia / Q000145:classification* / Q000201:enzymology; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D004592:Electrophoresis, Starch Gel; D006801:Humans; D007527:Isoenzymes / Q000032:analysis*; D011552:Pseudomonas Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology*; D012703:Serotyping
D007527:Isoenzymes