Comparison of pulsed-gel electrophoresis and a commercial repetitive-element PCR method for assessment of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus clustering in different health care facilities

Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) is a common method used to type methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in nosocomial investigations and epidemiological studies but is time-consuming and methodologically challenging. We compared typing results obtained using a commercial repetitiv...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of clinical microbiology 2014-06, Vol.52 (6), p.2027-2032
Main Authors: Crnich, Christopher J, Duster, Megan, Warrack, Simone, Maki, Dennis, Safdar, Nasia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Bacterial Typing Techniques - methods
Cohort Studies
Cross Infection - microbiology
Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field - methods
Environmental Microbiology
Epidemiology
Female
Genotype
Health Facilities
Humans
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus - classification
Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus - genetics
Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus - isolation & purification
Molecular Epidemiology - methods
Molecular Typing - methods
Polymerase Chain Reaction - methods
Staphylococcal Infections - microbiology
Staphylococcus aureus
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) is a common method used to type methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in nosocomial investigations and epidemiological studies but is time-consuming and methodologically challenging. We compared typing results obtained using a commercial repetitive-element PCR (rep-PCR) system with PFGE in a sample of 86 unique MRSA isolates recovered from subjects in an academic referral hospital and two nursing homes in the same geographic region. Both methods reliably assigned isolates to the same Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pulsotype. PFGE was significantly more discriminatory (Simpson's index of diversity, 0.92 at the 95% strain similarity threshold) than the commercial rep-PCR system (Simpson's index of diversity, 0.58). The global (adjusted Rand coefficient, 0.10) and directional congruence (adjusted Wallace coefficient(repPCR→PFGE) = 0.06; adjusted Wallace coefficient(PFGE → repPCR) = 0.52) between the two methods was low. MRSA strains recovered from study nursing homes that were clonal when typed by the commercial rep-PCR method were frequently noted to be genetically distinct when typed using PFGE. These data suggest that the commercial rep-PCR has less utility than PFGE in small-scale epidemiological assessments of MRSA in health care settings.
ISSN:0095-1137
1098-660X
DOI:10.1128/JCM.03466-13