title: Correlations between genotyping and antibiograms of clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa from three different south Indian hospitals.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To compare the molecular relationships and antibiograms of nosocomial isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa obtained from three different genres of hospitals located in Southern India, two located at Hyderabad (one private hospital and an ophthalmic hospital) and one in Puducherry (tertiary care teaching hospital). Each of these hospitals, which follow different infection control strategies and various problems associated with it, were investigated.
  
  
  METHODS
  Antibiograms generated by disk diffusion susceptibility testing for clinically relevant antibiotics and genotyping through fluorescent amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis (fAFLP) were the tools used in the study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Molecular genotyping revealed a heterogeneous group of unrelated molecular clusters of P. aeruginosa strains having higher resistance that are apparently being endemic throughout the tertiary care teaching hospital. In eye care hospital, only a few distinct strains of P. aeruginosa predominating the study period were shown to be responsible for outbreaks. The third private hospital witnessed a group of resistant and persistent strains that might have clonally originated from a diverse collection of strains.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The divergent kind of strains in our study suggests that there may be a direct link between the infection control practices followed in each hospital and kind of strains isolated in that particular setup. The study also emphasizes the need for maintaining infection control practices in hospitals with superior standards, failure of which might result in thriving of persistent P. aeruginosa clones in the hospitals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Pondicherry University, R. Venkataraman Nagar, Kalapet, Puducherry - 605 014, India.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Prashanth
authors.forename: S K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kanungo
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Shashikala
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Joshi
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jayachandran
mesh_terms: D054458:Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis; D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology*; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D005838:Genotype; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D011552:Pseudomonas Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology*; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa / Q000145:classification* / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*