ARBITRARILY PRIMED POLYMERASE CHAIN-REACTION PROVIDES RAPID DIFFERENTIATION OF PROTEUS-MIRABILIS ISOLATES FROM A PEDIATRIC HOSPITAL

During a systematic survey, maternal carriage of Proteus mirabilis was found over a 25-day period in 18 pregnant women admitted to the deliv ery ward of our hospital maternity. Five neonates born to these mother s were found to be colonized with P. mirabilis. We report here on the use of DNA fingerprinting by the arbitrarily primed polymerase chain r eaction technique (AP-PCR) for the epidemiological investigation of th is sudden outbreak. This approach was compared with the analysis of re striction fragment length polymorphisms of ribosomal DNA regions (ribo typing). Results of the AP-PCR and of ribotyping were in complete agre ement in showing the genetic unrelatedness of the isolates obtained fr om each mother. Moreover, the results showed mother-to-infant vertical transmission of P. mirabilis in the neonates. AP-PCR is a rapid and d iscriminative method which seems particularly well suited to the epide miological study of P. mirabilis.