Open AccessMolecular epidemiology of Legionella pneumophilia serogroup 1 by ribotyping with a non‐radioactive probe and PCR fingerprinting
Author(s) -
MatsiotaBernard Peggy,
Thierry Dominique,
Guesdon JeanLuc,
Nauciel Charles
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
fems immunology & medical microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1574-695X
pISSN - 0928-8244
DOI - 10.1111/j.1574-695x.1994.tb00469.x
Subject(s) - ribotyping , biology , polymerase chain reaction , dna profiling , legionella pneumophila , microbiology and biotechnology , restriction fragment length polymorphism , serotype , typing , molecular epidemiology , virology , genetics , genotype , dna , bacteria , gene
Hybridization with acetylaminofluorene‐labelled 16 + 23 S rRNA from Escherichia coli was used to detect DNA polymorphism among Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 isolates. Isolates from unrelated patients showed at least four different rRNA restriction patterns, whereas those from related patients showed a single pattern. Amplification of genomic regions with an arbitrary primer by polymerase chain reaction was used to further analyze the isolates. Related isolates showed closely related patterns while unrelated isolates displayed six distinct patterns. We could differentiate the majority of unrelated isolates with the combination of the patterns obtained with the ribotyping and the PCR fingerprinting, while strains from the same outbreak remained highly related. The ribotyping and the PCR fingerprinting are proposed as useful and easy to perform epidemiological markers of L. pneumophila serogroup 1 infection.