Typing of hospital strains of Xanthomonas maltophilia by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis

Abstract We report the use of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) to characterize Xanthomonas maltophilia isolates from an incident of hospital-acquired infection over a 12-day period in a haematological unit. Ten isolates from five patients (from throat, urine, stool and blood) and two isolates from environmental sites in the unit were compared with 10 epidemiologically unrelated clinical strains, isolated over a 3-month period from several units in two hospitals, by PFGE of Dra I digests of chromosomal DNA. The profiles obtained were stable, reproducible and discriminatory. The 10 unrelated strains had different DNA profiles. Each of the five patients in the unit was colonized by a different strain and the isolates from a water faucet and a shower pommel had the same DNA profile as the strains of two patients who had used these fittings. A case-controlled study showed that the only factor that correlated with colonization was the origin of the patient from another unit ( P = 0·0122). We conclude that PFGE is a rapid and discriminatory technique for the typing of X. maltophilia where a common origin of infection is suspected.