title: Genotypic Characterization of Vibrio vulnificus Clinical Isolates in Korea.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Vibrio vunificus is known to cause septicemia and severe wound infections in patients with chronic liver diseases or an immuno-compromised condition. We carried out the molecular characterization of V. vulnificus isolates from human Vibrio septicemia cases based on pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) using NotI and SfiI.
  
  
  RESULTS
  PFGE was used to characterize a total of 78 strains from clinical cases after NotI or SfiI digestion. The geographical distribution of PFGE patterns for the strains from the southern part of Korea, a high-risk region for Vibrio septicemia, indicated that the isolates from southeastern Korea showed a comparatively higher degree of homology than those from southwestern Korea.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We report the genetic distribution of V. vulnficus isolated from Vibrio septicemia cases during 2000-2004 in Korea. This method has potential use as a subspecies-typing tool for V. vulnificus strains isolated from distant geographic regions.
authors.affiliation: Division of Enteric and Hepatitis Virus, Center for Infectious Diseases, Korea National Institute of Health, Osong, Korea.
authors.forename: Hye Sook
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Jeong
authors.forename: Jun Young
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Se Mi
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Jeon
authors.forename: Mi Sun
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Seong Han
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Kim
keywords: PFGE; Vibrio vulnificus; molecular typing