Characterisation of non-capsulate Haemophilus influenzae by repetitive extragenic palindromic (REP)-PCR

• Published in: Journal of medical microbiology Vol. 47; no. 11; pp. 1031 - 1034
• Main Author: Jordens, J. Zoe
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Reading Soc General Microbiol 01.11.1998; Society for General Microbiology
• Subjects: Bacteriology; Biological and medical sciences; Disease Outbreaks; DNA, Bacterial - analysis; Epidemiology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Haemophilus Infections - epidemiology; Haemophilus Infections - microbiology; Haemophilus influenzae; Haemophilus influenzae - classification; Haemophilus influenzae - genetics; Humans; Microbiology; Phenotype; Polymerase Chain Reaction - methods; Reproducibility of Results; Pasteurellaceae; Performance evaluation; Polymerase chain reaction; Typing; Repeated sequence; Molecular epidemiology; Bacteria; Genotype; Haemophilus influenzae; Palindromic sequence
• ISSN: 0022-2615; 1473-5644
• DOI: 10.1099/00222615-47-11-1031

Oxford Public Health Laboratory, Level 6/7 John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DU Received December 19, 1997 Accepted March 30, 1998 The use of repetitive extragenic palindromic (REP)-PCR to characterise non-capsulate Haemophilus influenzae (NCHI) for epidemiological studies was validated by application to four outbreak-associated and three epidemiologically unrelated NCHI strains of the same phenotype which had been well characterised by other methods. The REP-PCR patterns were reproducible and showed the unrelated isolates to be distinguishable from each other, whereas the outbreak-associated isolates were indistinguishable. The results were concordant with those from outer-membrane protein enriched profiles, ribotyping and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA analysis. When applied to six further isolates from two different suspected outbreaks, rapid results were obtained from boiled supernates prepared from one colony and indicated that the isolates in question were not related. REP-PCR provides a rapid method of strain characterisation suitable for NCHI, which is ideal for use in conjunction with other methods. * Present address: Department of Molecular Microbiology, University of Southampton, Level C South Block, Southampton General Hospital, Tremona Road, Southampton SO16 6YD, UK.