GENETIC-HETEROGENEITY OF PSEUDOMONAS-AERUGINOSA CLINICAL ISOLATES REVEALED BY ESTERASE ELECTROPHORETIC POLYMORPHISM AND RESTRICTION-FRAGMENT-LENGTH-POLYMORPHISM OF THE RIBOSOMAL-RNA GENE REGION
B. Picard et al., GENETIC-HETEROGENEITY OF PSEUDOMONAS-AERUGINOSA CLINICAL ISOLATES REVEALED BY ESTERASE ELECTROPHORETIC POLYMORPHISM AND RESTRICTION-FRAGMENT-LENGTH-POLYMORPHISM OF THE RIBOSOMAL-RNA GENE REGION, Journal of Medical Microbiology, 40(5), 1994, pp. 313-322
The intra-species differentiation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was analys
ed by comparing the polymorphism of esterases by conventional polyacry
lamide-agarose gel electrophoresis, the physicochemical properties of
the variants of the major esterase P-3 and the restriction fragment le
ngth polymorphism of ribosomal RNA gene regions (ribotyping) to O-sero
typing for several panels of strains selected from among a series of 2
57 clinical isolates and two references strains, (ATCC nos. 10145 and
27853). The electrophoretic variation of four main kinds of esterase (
P-1-P-4) and 11 additional esterases distinguished by their spectra of
hydrolytic activity with synthetic substrates and by their sensitivit
y to di-isopropyl-fluorophosphate, allowed the discrimination of 67 zy
motypes. Thirty-two esterase P-3 variants were characterised by their
pI, electrophoretic mobilities and titration curve analyses. They were
distributed into two groups which, by these molecular criteria, seem
to be distantly related. Combination of the patterns resulting from Hi
ndIII, EcoRI, and BclI restriction endonuclease digestions allowed the
discrimination of 33 ribotypes among 134 strains. The strains exhibit
ing esterase P-3 variants of group 2 presented a distinct ribotype and
belonged to serotype O12. They could constitute a distinct group with
in the species. For the majority of the strains, the absence of correl
ation between zymotype, ribotype and serotype argues for a high level
of heterogeneity within P. aeruginosa and indicates that the parallel
use of the first two methods represent a potential tool for epidemiolo
gical study.