Discriminatory usefulness of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and sequence-based typing in Legionella outbreaks

Sara Quero, Marian García-Núñez, Noemí Párraga-Niño, Irene Barrabeig, Maria L. Pedro-Botet, Mercè De Simon, Nieves Sopena, Miquel Sabrià

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

© 2016 Future Medicine Ltd. Aim: To compare the discriminatory power of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and sequence-based typing (SBT) in Legionella outbreaks for determining the infection source. Materials & methods: Twenty-five investigations of Legionnaires' disease were analyzed by PFGE, SBT and Dresden monoclonal antibody. Results: The results suggested that monoclonal antibody could reduce the number of Legionella isolates to be characterized by molecular methods. The epidemiological concordance PFGE-SBT was 100%, while the molecular concordance was 64%. Adjusted Wallace index (AW) showed that PFGE has better discriminatory power than SBT (AWSBT→PFGE = 0.767; AWPFGE→SBT = 1). The discrepancies appeared mostly in sequence type (ST) 1, a worldwide distributed ST for which PFGE discriminated different profiles. Conclusion: SBT discriminatory power was not sufficient verifying the infection source, especially in worldwide distributed STs, which were classified into different PFGE patterns.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)757-765
JournalFuture Microbiology
Volume11
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2016

Keywords

  • congruence
  • discriminatory power
  • Legionella
  • molecular-epidemiology outbreaks
  • PFGE
  • SBT
  • typing

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Discriminatory usefulness of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and sequence-based typing in Legionella outbreaks'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this