title: Pneumocystis jirovecii multilocus genotyping profiles in Northern Ireland.
abstract: Pneumocystis jirovecii causes pneumonia, a severe opportunistic infection in immunosuppressed patients that has both person-to-person airborne transmission and environmental transmission as important routes of infection. An increasing incidence of P. jirovecii in Northern Ireland prompted a detailed epidemiological and molecular review that included enhanced surveillance on all lower respiratory specimens. Genotyping of these P. jirovecii positive specimens was undertaken using multiple locus sequence typing (MLST) targeting known variable regions of the P. jirovecii genome. Multiple circulating types were found among all patient risk categories. However, a predominance of one MLST type was found in a P. jirovecii outbreak amongst the renal transplant population. Our results demonstrate the diversity of P. jirovecii strains amongst the local immunosuppressed cohort and highlight the importance of genotyping in the investigation of common sources of P. jirovecii amongst immunosuppressed patients.
authors.affiliation: Regional Virus Laboratory, Microbiology Department, Kelvin Building, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, Northern Ireland BT12 6BA, UK.
authors.forename: Tanya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Curran
authors.affiliation: Regional Virus Laboratory, Microbiology Department, Kelvin Building, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, Northern Ireland BT12 6BA, UK.
authors.forename: Conall
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: McCaughey
authors.affiliation: Regional Virus Laboratory, Microbiology Department, Kelvin Building, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, Northern Ireland BT12 6BA, UK.
authors.forename: Peter V
authors.initials: PV
authors.lastname: Coyle
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004271:DNA, Fungal / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D005260:Female; D016681:Genome, Fungal / Q000235:genetics*; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D016867:Immunocompromised Host; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D016030:Kidney Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D058885:Multilocus Sequence Typing / Q000379:methods*; D016533:Mycological Typing Techniques / Q000379:methods; D009660:Northern Ireland / Q000453:epidemiology; D045363:Pneumocystis carinii / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D011020:Pneumonia, Pneumocystis / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000401:mortality; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D004271:DNA, Fungal