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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, November 2006, p. 4009-4013, Vol. 44, No. 11
0095-1137/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.00195-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Molecular Epidemiology of Hospital-Acquired Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci{triangledown}

Marianne Abele-Horn,1* Ulrich Vogel,1 Ingo Klare,3 Carola Konstabel,3 Rene Trabold,1 Risa Kurihara,1 Wolfgang Witte,3 Wolfgang Kreth,2 Paul-Gerhardt Schlegel,2 and Heike Claus1

Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology, University of Würzburg, Josef-Schneider-Straße 2, 97080 Würzburg, Germany,1 Department of Pediatrics, University of Würzburg, Josef-Schneider-Straße 2, 97080 Würzburg, Germany,2 Robert Koch Institute, Wernigerode Branch, Burgstr. 37, 38855 Wernigerode, Germany3

Received 30 January 2006/ Returned for modification 25 March 2006/ Accepted 26 August 2006

Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium strains are a significant cause of nosocomial infections in predisposed patients. Multiple-locus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) has been validated recently by use of a global strain collection. In this report, we applied MLVA together with multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) to type 14 isolates from three clusters of patients colonized or infected with vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium and another 10 epidemiologically unrelated isolates from the same hospital. The clusters could be distinguished by all three typing methods, which proved to be concordant. PFGE patterns provided the highest resolution. We observed seven sequence types (ST), six MLVA types (MT), and nine distinct ST/MT combinations. The combination of MLST and MLVA may be an alternative to PFGE in hospital epidemiology, providing the benefits of high accuracy, reproducibility, and portability.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology, University of Würzburg, Josef-Schneider-Straße 2, 97080 Würzburg, Germany. Phone: 49-931-201-46941. Fax: 49-931-201-46445. E-mail: mhorn{at}hygiene.uni-wuerzburg.de.

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 27 September 2006.

Journal of Clinical Microbiology, November 2006, p. 4009-4013, Vol. 44, No. 11
0095-1137/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.00195-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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