title: Use of PCR to study epidemiology of Serratia marcescens isolates in nosocomial infection.
abstract: A method to characterize strains of Serratia marcescens based on the PCR amplification of enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus sequences has been developed. The PCR fingerprints were generated from boiled supernatants prepared directly from bacterial colonies without the need for DNA extraction. The technique was applied to isolates obtained during an outbreak of pneumonia from seven mechanically ventilated patients, and its result indicated that the outbreak was due to the spread of two epidemic strains. This technique was validated by comparison with rRNA gene restriction analysis. There was complete concordance between these two techniques in discriminating the outbreak-related strains from epidemiologically unrelated isolates. Typing with both biochemical profile and antibiogram profile, though simple, was found to be less reliable than genotyping. The results show that this enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus PCR provides a rapid and simple means of typing S. marcescens isolates for epidemiologic studies.
authors.affiliation: Section of Infectious Diseases, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan, Republic of China.
authors.forename: P Y
authors.initials: PY
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Y J
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Lau
authors.forename: B S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Shir
authors.forename: M H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Cheung
authors.forename: Z Y
authors.initials: ZY
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: W S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Tsai
mesh_terms: D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques; D001483:Base Sequence; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology*; D017931:DNA Primers; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000235:genetics; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018410:Pneumonia, Bacterial / Q000382:microbiology; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods*; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D012338:RNA, Ribosomal, 23S / Q000235:genetics; D016868:Serratia Infections / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012706:Serratia marcescens / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D012338:RNA, Ribosomal, 23S