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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, Mar 1995, 551-555, Vol 33, No. 3
TL Bannerman, GA Hancock, FC Tenover and JM Miller
Bacteriophage typing (BT) (World Health Organization method) has been used
at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for over 30 years to type
isolates of Staphylococcus aureus. Since studies have shown that BT
patterns have poor reproducibility and because BT fails to type a high
percentage (15 to 20%) of isolates, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention has converted from using BT to using pulsed-field gel
electrophoresis (PFGE) for strain typing S. aureus. We compared the results
of BT with results of PFGE for typing 300 isolates of S. aureus, including
strains from several well-characterized outbreaks. Ninety-six isolates were
BT group I, 19 were group II, 82 were group III, 7 were group V, and 96
were nontypeable. PFGE identified subgroups within each phage group and
thus was more discriminating than BT, which identified no subgroups. PFGE
was able to type all isolates and distinguish related from unrelated
strains of S. aureus. Our modified, standardized PFGE methodology should
enable typing laboratories to obtain rapid, reliable results in 3 to 4 days
when starting with an isolated colony on agar media.
Copyright © 1995 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis as a replacement for bacteriophage typing of Staphylococcus aureus
National Center for Infectious Disease, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia 30333, USA.
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