Molecular epidemiological study of vertical transmission of vaginal Lactobacillus species from mothers to newborn infants in Japanese, by arbitrarily primed polymerase chain reaction

• Published in: Journal of infection and chemotherapy : official journal of the Japan Society of Chemotherapy 2002-03, Vol.8 (1), p.43-49
• Main Authors: Matsumiya, Yoshiko, Kato, Naoki, Watanabe, Kunitomo, Kato, Haru
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arbitrarily primed polymerase chain reaction; Bacterial Typing Techniques; Biological and medical sciences; Fecal flora; Feces - microbiology; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Infectious Disease Transmission, Vertical; Intestine. Mesentery; Lactobacillus; Lactobacillus - classification; Lactobacillus - genetics; Lactobacillus - isolation & purification; Milk, Human - microbiology; Polymerase Chain Reaction - methods; Pregnancy; Typing; Vagina - microbiology; Vaginal flora; Vertebrates: digestive system
• ISSN: 1341-321X; 1437-7780
• DOI: 10.1007/s101560200005

We investigated mother-to-newborn infant transmission of Lactobacillus species in Japanese by the typing of isolates from the vagina of pregnant women and stool specimens from their newborn infants. All infants were born by uncomplicated vaginal delivery and were basically fed breast milk. Lactobacillus strains were fingerprinted by arbitrarily primed polymerase chain reaction (AP-PCR), using ERIC1R and ERIC2 primers. Of 86 pregnant women tested, 71 (82.6%) were positive for vaginal lactobacilli. At 5 days after birth, 24 (33.8%) of the 71 infants whose mothers were lactobacilli-positive had fecal lactobacilli, while only 1 (6.7%) of the 15 infants delivered from the vaginal lactobacilli-negative mothers was lactobacilli-positive (P