Discriminatory power and usefulness of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis in epidemiological studies of Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
We assessed the discriminatory power of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) for the analysis of DNA restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We determined DraI PFGE-RFLP of DNA of unrelated clinical and environmental strains, and clinical strains isolated from two intensive care units of the Besançon University Hospital. The typeability and reproducibility was 100%. The discriminatory index was 0.998, and the DNA patterns were stable in vitro and in vivo. There was a very low correlation between PFGE-RFLP and traditional typing methods. The typeability, reproducibility, the high discriminatory power and the stability of PFGE-RFLP make this a valuable method to be used in conjunction with serotyping. Further standardization and quantitative interpretation are possible and should lead to this technique becoming a library typing system.
Talon
D
D
Laboratoire de Bactériologie-Hygiène, Faculté de médecine, Hôpital Jean Minjoz, Besançon, France.
Cailleaux
V
V
Thouverez
M
M
Michel-Briand
Y
Y
D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D006801:Humans; D010641:Phenotype; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
D004269:DNA, Bacterial