Comparison of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and three rep-PCR methods for evaluating the genetic relatedness ofStenotrophomonas maltophiliaisolates

AIMS: In this study, three facile repetitive-sequence PCR (rep-PCR) techniques have been compared with the pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) method for differentiating the genetic relatedness of clinical Stenotrophomonas maltophilia isolates. METHODS AND RESULTS: The dendrograms of 20 S. maltophilia isolates were constructed based on the data obtained from PFGE and three PCR-based methods, i.e. enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus-PCR (ERIC-PCR), BOX-PCR and repetitive extragenic palindromic-PCR (REP-PCR). When compared with PFGE, ERIC-PCR displayed a much lower discriminatory power, whereas BOX-PCR and REP-PCR had a comparable discriminatory power for close genetic-related isolates. CONCLUSION: BOX-PCR and REP-PCR can be convenient and effective methods for evaluating the close genetic relatedness of clinical S. maltophilia isolates. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: A rapid method for determining S. maltophilia's close genetic relatedness provides a convenient tool for understanding the epidemiology of S. maltophilia.