Skip to main content
Log in

Molecular epidemiological characteristics of pneumococcal meningitis in children

  • Articles
  • Published:
European Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The molecular epidemiological characteristics of pneumococcal meningitis in children were studied. Pneumococcal isolates were characterized by serotyping and two genotyping methods, BOX fingerprinting and restriction fragment end labeling, to evaluate whether clonal strains were present within the serotypes or serogroups. During a 17-year period, 68 children admitted to the Sophia Children's Hospital were diagnosed with meningitis due toStreptococcus pneumoniae. Pneumococcal isolates from 44 patients were still available for analysis. All strains were susceptible to penicillin. Serotypes/ serogroups 14,19, 6, and 18 represented 56% of all isolates. The results of the molecular typing methods demonstrate the absence of clonal relatedness between isolates from patients with pneumococcal meningitis.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Austrian R, Boettger C, Dole M, Fairly L, Freid M:Streptococcus pneumoniao type 16A, a hitherto undescribed pneumococcal type. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 1985, 22: 127–128.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Hoge CW, Reichler MR, Dominguez EA, Bremer JC, Mastro TD, Hendricks KA, Musher DM, Elliott JA, Facklam RR, Breiman RF: An epidemic of pneumococcal disease in an overcrowded, inadequately ventilated jail. New England Journal of Medicine 1994, 331: 643–648.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Sibold C, Wang J, Henrichsen J, Hakenbeck R: Genetic relationships of penicillin-susceptible and-resistantStreptococcus pneumoniae strains isolated on different continents. Infection and Immunity 1992, 60: 4119–4126.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Lefevre JC, Faucon G, Sicard AM, Gasc AM: DNA fingerprinting ofStreptococcus pneumoniae strains by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 1993, 31: 2724–2728.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Hakenbeck R, Briese T, Chalkley L, Ellerbrok H, Kalliokoski R, Latorre C, Leinonen M, Martin C: Variability of penicillin-binding proteins from penicillin-sensitiveStreptococcus pneumoniae. Journal of Infectious Diseases 1991, 164: 307–312.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Soares S, Kristinsson KG, Musser JM, Tomasz A: Evidence for the introduction of a multiresistant clone of serotype 6BStreptococcus pneumoniae from Spain to Iceland in the late 1980s. Journal of Infectious Diseases 1993, 168: 158–163.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. McDougal LK, Facklam R, Reeves M, Hunter S, Swenson JM, Hill BC, Tenover FC: Analysis of multiply antimicrobial-resistant isolates ofStreptococcus pneumoniae from the United States. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 1992, 36: 2176–2184.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Versalovic J, Kapur V, Mason E Jr, Shah U, Koeuth T, Lupski JR, Musser JM: Penicillin-resistantStreptococcus pneumoniae strains recovered in Houston: identification and molecular characterization of multiple clones. Journal of Infectious Diseases 1993, 167: 850–856.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Hermans PWM, Sluijter M, Hoogenboezem T, Heersma H, Van Belkum A, De Groot R: Comparative study of five different DNA fingerprint techniques for molecular typing ofStreptococcus pneumoniae strains. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 1995, 33: 1606–1612.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Kornellsse RF, Westerbeek CML, Spoor AB, Van der Heijde B, Spanjaard L, Neijens HJ, De Groot R: Pneumococcal meningitis in children: prognostic indicators and outcome. Clinical Infectious Diseases 1995, 21: 1390–1397.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards: Methods for dilution antimicrobial susceptibility tests for bacteria that grow aerobically. Approved standard M7-A2. NCCLS, 1990, Villanova, PA.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Van Soolingen D, De Haas PE, Hermans PW, Van Embden JD: DNA fingerprinting ofMycobacterium tuberculosis. Methods in Enzymology 1994, 235: 196–205.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Sambrook J, Fritsch EF, Maniatis T: Molecular cloning, a laboratory manual. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Martin B, Humbert O, Camara M, Guenzi E, Walker J, Mitchell T, Andrew P, Prudhomme M, Alloing G, Hakenbeck R, Morrison DA, Boulnois GJ, Claverys JP: A highly conserved repeated DNA element located in the chromosome ofStreptococcus pneumoniae. Nucleic Acids Research 1992, 20: 3479–3483.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Hermans PW, Van Soolingen D, Bik EM, De Haas PE, Dale JW, Van Embden JD: Insertion element IS987 fromMycobacterium bovis BCG is located in a hot-spot integration region for insertion elements inMycobacterium tuberculosis complex strains. Infection and Immunity 1991, 59: 2695–2705.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Van Steenbergen TJM, Colloms SD, Hermans PWM, De Graaff J, Plasterk RHA: Genomic DNA fingerprinting by restriction fragment end labeling (RFEL). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 1995, 92: 5572–5576.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Romesburg HC: Cluster analysis for researchers. Krieger, Malabar, FL, 1990, p. 9–28.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Sneath PHA, Sokal RR: Numerical taxonomy. Freeman, San Francisco, 1973, p. 131–132.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Nielsen SV, Henrichsen J: Capsular types ofStreptococcus pneumoniae isolated from blood and CSF during 1982–1987. Clinical Infectious Diseases 1992, 15: 794–798.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Hall LMC, Whiley RA, Duke B, George RC, Efstratiou A: Genetic relatedness within and between serotypes ofStreptococcus pneumoniae from the United Kingdom: Analysis of multilocus enzyme electrophoresis, pulsedfield gel electrophoresis, and antimicrobial resistance patterns. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 1996, 34: 853–859.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kornelisse, R.F., Sluijter, M., Spanjaard, L. et al. Molecular epidemiological characteristics of pneumococcal meningitis in children. Eur. J. Clin. Microbiol. Infect. Dis. 15, 635–638 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01691148

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01691148

Keywords

Navigation