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Genetic analysis of pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates from patients with post‐operative endophthalmitis
Author(s) -
PINNA A,
USAI D,
SECHI LA,
ZANETTI S,
KALIAMURTHY J
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
acta ophthalmologica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.534
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1755-3768
pISSN - 1755-375X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-3768.2008.682.x
Subject(s) - endophthalmitis , pseudomonas aeruginosa , polymerase chain reaction , intergenic region , microbiology and biotechnology , typing , biology , outbreak , medicine , virology , genetics , bacteria , genome , gene
Abstract Purpose To establish clonal relationship between strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from 24 patients with postoperative endophthalmitis following cataract surgery Methods All the patients with postoperative endophthalmitis were operated at the same operation theatre in the same hospital in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, India. All the cases occurred within a time period of one month. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC) primers (ERIC‐PCR) was used to establish clonal relationship between the different isolates. Results ERIC‐PCR disclosed 4 different patterns. Seventeen isolates showed an identical pattern, whereas 2 other strains were closely correlated with the former 17. Two other isolates, with identical ERIC‐PCR pattern, were genetically similar, but to a lesser extent, to the first group. The remaining 3 isolates showed identical ERIC‐PCR pattern, but they were less correlated with the other strains. Conclusion The results of this study indicate that the outbreak of postoperative P. aeruginosa endophthalmitis presented here was caused predominantly by isolates with identical or very similar genetic patterns, thus suggesting a common source of infection in most cases. ERIC‐PCR appears to be an inexpensive, fast, reproducible, and discriminatory DNA typing tool for effective epidemiological surveillance of outbreaks of P. aeruginosa eye infections.