Molecular epidemiology of hospital-acquired vancomycin-resistant enterococci.
Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium strains are a significant cause of nosocomial infections in predisposed patients. Multiple-locus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) has been validated recently by use of a global strain collection. In this report, we applied MLVA together with multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) to type 14 isolates from three clusters of patients colonized or infected with vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium and another 10 epidemiologically unrelated isolates from the same hospital. The clusters could be distinguished by all three typing methods, which proved to be concordant. PFGE patterns provided the highest resolution. We observed seven sequence types (ST), six MLVA types (MT), and nine distinct ST/MT combinations. The combination of MLST and MLVA may be an alternative to PFGE in hospital epidemiology, providing the benefits of high accuracy, reproducibility, and portability.
Abele-Horn
Marianne
M
Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology, University of Würzburg, Germany. mhorn@hygiene.uni-wuerzburg.de
Vogel
Ulrich
U
Klare
Ingo
I
Konstabel
Carola
C
Trabold
Rene
R
Kurihara
Risa
R
Witte
Wolfgang
W
Kreth
Wolfgang
W
Schlegel
Paul-Gerhardt
PG
Claus
Heike
H
D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology*; D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field; D016983:Enterococcus / Q000145:classification* / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D018598:Minisatellite Repeats; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013290:Streptococcal Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000382:microbiology*; D020713:Vancomycin Resistance