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Genotyping of Human Campylobacter jejuni Isolates in Greece by Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis

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Abstract

Background: Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) typing has been recognized by several groups as a relatively simple and quick method for genotyping of Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni). The present study was carried out to determine the genetic variations among clinical isolates of C. jejuni from Greece and to establish a database, which could be used for future epidemiological and clinical studies.

Methods: A total of 93 C. jejuni clinical isolates of known flagellin subunit A (flaA) genotype, serotype, and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern, were collected from a general hospital in the Attica region of Greece, between the years 2000 and 2003. The PFGE profiles of SmaI DNA digests of each strain were compared using a bin analysis based on 44 molecular size intervals.

Results: Forty-three different PFGE types, designated as C. jejuni (C. j.) 1 Greece (GR) to C. j. 43 GR, were identified. There was no statistically significant association of PFGE type with flaA genotype, serotype, or antimicrobial susceptibility pattern. However, PFGE typing did show a remarkable discriminatory ability within the non-serotypable group.

Conclusion: Evaluating our results, we observed that (i) there was no statistically significant clonality of a certain PFGE type among the strains examined, and (ii) the discriminatory ability of PFGE typing was much better than that of the other typing methods. This is the first report of the use of bin patterns to compare the PFGE genotypes identified.

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Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Mr Pantelis Bagos from the Department of Cell Biology and Biophysics, University of Athens, Greece, for statistical analysis of the data. We thank the Herakleitos fellowship program of the Greek Ministry of National Education for supporting this study in the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

The authors have no conflicts of interest that are directly relevant to the content of this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Microbiology, Athens Medical School, Aeginition Hospital, Athens, Greece

    Anastassios Ioannidis, Chryssoula Nicolaou & Vasiliki Ioannidou

  2. Department of Microbiology, Athens Medical School, Athens, Greece

    Nicholas John Legakis

  3. Department of Clinical Microbiology, Penteli Children’s Hospital, Athens, Greece

    Eleni Papavasileiou, Aliki Voyatzi &  Stylianos Chatzipanagiotou

Authors
  1. Anastassios Ioannidis
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  2. Chryssoula Nicolaou
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  3. Nicholas John Legakis
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  4. Vasiliki Ioannidou
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  5. Eleni Papavasileiou
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  6. Aliki Voyatzi
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  7. Stylianos Chatzipanagiotou
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Correspondence to Stylianos Chatzipanagiotou.

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Ioannidis, A., Nicolaou, C., Legakis, N.J. et al. Genotyping of Human Campylobacter jejuni Isolates in Greece by Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis. Mol Diag Ther 10, 391–396 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03256216

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03256216

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