VERIFICATION OF A PCR-BASED TYPING METHOD FOR ACINETOBACTER-BAUMANNIIIN A PSEUDO-OUTBREAK INVESTIGATION

Acinetobacter spp. isolates were increasingly obtained from clinical s pecimens and sterility samples, and a subsequent epidemiological inves tigation implicated an intermittently contaminated supply of commercia lly acquired enrichment broths. Typing was performed with DNA amplific ation by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using enterobacterial rep etitive intergenic consensus sequence primers, ERIC2 and reverse ERIC1 R. The reliability of this PCR-based typing method was verified by the ability of the technique to demonstrate homology and differences amon g isolates from an epidemiologically well-defined pseudo-outbreak. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.