Acinetobacter baumannii has been prevalent in nosocomial
infections, often causing outbreaks in intensive care units.
ISAba1 is an insertion sequence that has been identified only
in A. baumannii and its copy number varies among strains.
It has been reported that ISAba1 provides a promoter for
blaOXA-51-like, blaOXA-23-like, and blaampC, which are associated
with the resistance of A. baumannii to carbapenems and cephalosporins.
The main purpose of this study was to develop
a novel inverse PCR method capable of typing A. baumannii
strains. The method involves three major steps: cutting of genomic
DNA with a restriction enzyme, ligation, and PCR.
In the first step, bacterial genomic DNA was digested with
DpnI. In the second step, the digested genomic DNAs were
ligated to form intramolecular circular DNAs. In the last step,
the ligated circular DNAs were amplified by PCR with primers
specific for ISAba1 and the amplified PCR products
were electrophoresed. Twenty-two clinical isolates of A. baumannii
were used for the evaluation of the inverse PCR (iPCR)
typing method. Dendrogram analysis revealed two major clusters,
similar to pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) results.
Three ISAba1-associated genes – blaampC, blaOXA-66-like, and
csuD – were amplified and detected in the clinical isolates.
This novel iPCR typing method is comparable to PFGE in its
ability to discriminate A. baumannii strains, and is a promising
molecular epidemiological tool for investigating A.
baumannii carrying ISAba1.
In this study, the genetic diversities of multi-resistant Salmonella typhimurium (ST) isolates were
analyzed via the application of both pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and Polymerase chain
reaction (PCR) analysis methods, using 6 kinds of primers (REP, ERIC, SERE, BOX, P-1254 and
OPB-17). And their discriminative abilities (DA) were also compared in order to determine the
most effective and reliable analysis method. 118 S. typhimurium isolates, cultured from diverse animals
and human patients in Korea beginning in 1993, were analyzed and subjected to a comparison
of Simpson’s index of diversity (SID), using both PFGE and PCR methods. PFGE by XbaI
enzyme digestion allowed for discrimination into 9 pulsotypes, with high SID values (0.991) on the
genomic DNA level. This shows that PFGE is a very discriminative genotypic tool, and also that
multiple clones of S. typhimurium isolates had existed in domestic animals and humans in Korea
since 1993. However, we could ultimately not to trace the definitive sources or animal reservoirs
of specific S. typhimurium isolates examined in this study. Depending on the SID values, the combined method (7 kinds of method) was found to be the most discriminative method, followed by
(in order) SERE-PCR, REP-PCR, ERIC-PCR, PFGE & OPB-17 (RAPD), P-1254 (RAPD), and
BOX-PCR at the 80% clone cut-off value. This finding suggests that the REP-PCR method
(which utilizes 4 primer types) may be an alternative tool to PFGE for the genotyping of S. typhimurium
isolates, with comparable cost, time, and labor requirement. The establishment of a highly
reliable and discriminatory method for epidemiologic analysis is considered necessary in order
for researchers to trace the sources of specific pathogens and, consequently, to control and prevent
the spread of epidemic S. typhimurium isolates to humans.