An enhanced DNA fingerprinting service to investigate potential Clostridium difficile infection case clusters sharing the same PCR ribotype

Warren N Fawley; Mark H Wilcox; Clostridium difficile Ribotyping Network for England and Northern Ireland

doi:10.1128/JCM.05873-11

An enhanced DNA fingerprinting service to investigate potential Clostridium difficile infection case clusters sharing the same PCR ribotype

J Clin Microbiol. 2011 Dec;49(12):4333-7. doi: 10.1128/JCM.05873-11. Epub 2011 Sep 28.

Authors

Warren N Fawley¹, Mark H Wilcox; Clostridium difficile Ribotyping Network for England and Northern Ireland

Collaborators

Clostridium difficile Ribotyping Network for England and Northern Ireland:
M Wilcox, W Fawley, M Shemko, P Coen, A Birtles, E Bolton, M Curran, S Green, D Fairley, K Hardy, P Hawkey, P Hawtin, J Magee, B Patel, A Sails, N Shetty, E Walpole, M Wren

Affiliation

¹ Department of Microbiology, The General Infirmary, Old Medical School, Leeds LS1 3EX, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Of 53 potential Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) case clusters/outbreaks, affecting 2 to 41 patients in 27 institutions, 19% comprised unrelated isolates and 34% had highly related and distinct isolates as shown by multilocus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis, despite sharing a common ribotype. These findings emphasize the value of enhanced fingerprinting to confirm or refute suspected CDI case clusters.

MeSH terms

Bacterial Typing Techniques / methods*
Clostridioides difficile / classification*
Clostridioides difficile / genetics
Clostridioides difficile / isolation & purification*
Clostridium Infections / epidemiology*
Cluster Analysis
Cross Infection / epidemiology
DNA Fingerprinting / methods*
Disease Outbreaks
Genetic Variation
Humans
Molecular Epidemiology / methods
Polymerase Chain Reaction / methods*
Ribotyping*