MONITORING SPREAD OF MALASSEZIA INFECTIONS IN A NEONATAL INTENSIVE-CARE UNIT BY PCR-MEDIATED GENETIC TYPING

Malassezia furfur and Malassezia pachydermatis were isolated from newb orn children and incubators in a neonatal intensive care unit. To asse ss whether persistence or frequent import of the organisms was the cau se of the elevated incidence, genetic typing of the strains was perfor med by PCR-mediated DNA fingerprinting. By using PCR primers aimed at repeat consensus motifs, six different genotypes could be detected in a collection of six M. furfur reference strains. In the case of 10 M. pachydermatis reference strains, nine different genotypes were detecte d by three different PCR assays. None of these assays could document g enetic differences among the clinical isolates of either M. furfur or M. pachydermatis. On the basis of these results it is concluded that w ithin the neonatal intensive care unit the longitudinal persistence of both an M. furfur and an M. pachydermatis strain has occurred and tha t Malassezia species can persist on incubator surfaces for prolonged p eriods of time. It can be concluded that PCR fingerprinting is a Malas sezia typing procedure that is to be preferred over the analysis of ch romosomal polymorphisms by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis in this ge nus.