Authors
FARUK KARAKECILI*, BURCU DALYAN CILO**, ALPER KARAGOZ***, MERYEM JEFFERIES***, AYTEKIN CIKMAN****, HALIS AKALIN*****, CUNEYT OZAKIN**
Departments
*Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Erzincan University, Erzincan, Turkey -
**Faculty of Medicine, Department of Medical Microbiology, Uludağ University, Bursa, Turkey -
***Department of Microbiology Reference Laboratories, Turkey National Public Health Agency, Ankara, Turkey -
****Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Erzincan University, Erzincan, Turkey -
*****Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Uludağ University, Bursa, Turkey
Abstract
Introduction: Arbitrarily Primed-Polymerase Chain Reaction (AP-PCR) and Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) are widely used genotyping methods for investigating outbreaks of infections. The aim of this research is to compare AP-PCR with PFGE, which is known as the gold standard method, and to determine if AP-PCR is suitable for use in outbreaks.
Materials and methods: Between 2001 and 2009, 664 isolated vancomycin resistant enterococcus (VRE) strains were determined at the Bacteriology Laboratory, Department of Medical Microbiology. During nine years study 5 peak periods were identified. In each peak period of 3 months, 83 VRE strains were selected from the 664 for this research. For all isolates a comparison of AP-PCR and PFGE using 83 VRE strains was performed.
Results: Enterococcus faecium was found to be the dominant species in all VRE isolated from hospitalized patients. 83 strains of E. faecium were included in the study, which were isolated from 5 different possible epidemic periods over 9 years. 15 different clonal strains were collected using the AP-PCR method and 11 using PFGE.
Conclusion: PFGE was found to be repeatable and had a better separation power than AP-PCR. AP-PCR though is a simpler, cheaper and faster method and can be used for VRE epidemics as an alternative method. In future epidemiological outbreaks the comparative molecular methods are more reliable than a single method.
Keywords
AP-PCR, molecular methods, PFGE, VRE.
DOI:
10.19193/0393-6384_2016_6_166
