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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, October 1999, p. 3108-3112, Vol. 37, No. 10
Department of Internal
Medicine,1 Clinical Research
Institute,2 and Hospital Epidemiology & Infection Control Unit,3 College of
Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea
Received 15 March 1999/Returned for modification 22 May
1999/Accepted 27 June 1999
We applied infrequent-restriction-site PCR (IRS-PCR) to the
investigation of an outbreak caused by 23 isolates of
Acinetobacter baumannii in an intensive care unit from
November 1996 to May 1997 and a pseudoepidemic caused by 16 isolates of Serratia marcescens in a delivery room from May
to September 1996. In the epidemiologic investigation of
the outbreak caused by A. baumannii, environmental sampling
and screening of all health care workers revealed the same species from
the Y piece of a mechanical ventilator and the hands of two health care
personnel. IRS-PCR showed that all outbreak-related strains were
genotypically identical and that three strains from surveillance
cultures were also identical to the outbreak-related strains. In a
pseudoepidemic caused by S. marcescens, IRS-PCR identified
two different genotypes, and among them one genotype was predominant
(15 of 16 [93.8%] isolates). Extensive surveillance failed to find
any source of S. marcescens. Validation of the result of
IRS-PCR by comparison with that of field inversion gel electrophoresis
(FIGE) showed that they were completely concordant. These results
suggest that IRS-PCR is comparable to FIGE for molecular epidemiologic
studies. In addition, IRS-PCR was less laborious and less
time-consuming than FIGE. To our knowledge, this is the first report of
the application of IRS-PCR to A. baumannii and S. marcescens.
0095-1137/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Application of Infrequent-Restriction-Site PCR to Clinical
Isolates of Acinetobacter baumannii and
Serratia marcescens
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Internal Medicine, St. Mary's Hospital, 62 Yoido-dong, Youngdungpo-Gu, Seoul 150-010, South Korea. Phone: 82-2-3779-1151. Fax: 82-32-340-2669. E-mail: mogul{at}chollian.net.
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