Pulsed field gel electrophoresis and random amplified polymorphic DNA molecular characterization of Ralstonia pickettii isolates from patients with nosocomial central venous catheter related bacteremia.
Over a period of 18 months 3 clusters of central venous catheter-related Ralstonia pickettii bacteremia occurred in 3 different units of the same hospital. In order to investigate the relatedness of the clinical isolates we studied 15 strains using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) techniques. The combined analysis of the results obtained by these two methods led us to conclude that all the patients except one were infected by a single clone comprising two variants circulating in the units. Only one case was due to a different strain, probably originating outside the ward. PFGE and RAPD appear to be discriminatory techniques to study the clonal relationship among the isolates and can represent a good tool to perform the epidemiological investigation of an outbreak.
Pasticci
Maria Bruna
MB
Clinica di Malattie Infettive, Dipartimento Medicina Sperimentale e Scienze Biochimiche, University of Perugia, Italy. pasticci@unipg.it
Baldelli
Franco
F
Camilli
Romina
R
Cardinali
Gianluigi
G
Colozza
Antonietta
A
Marroni
Massimo
M
Morosi
Sabrina
S
Pantosti
Annalisa
A
Pitzurra
Lucia
L
Repettos
Antonella
A
Bistoni
Francesco
F
Stagni
Giuliano
G
D016470:Bacteremia / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology; D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques; D002405:Catheterization, Central Venous / Q000009:adverse effects*; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology; D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field; D016905:Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology; D006801:Humans; D043367:Ralstonia / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D019105:Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA Technique / Q000379:methods*