Dataset Information

Multilocus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis and multilocus sequence typing reveal genetic relationships among Clostridium difficile isolates genotyped by restriction endonuclease analysis.

ABSTRACT: Numbers of Clostridium difficile infections have increased worldwide in the past decade. While infection with C. difficile remains predominantly a health care-associated infection, there may also be an increased incidence of community-associated infections. C. difficile strains of public health significance continue to emerge, and reliable genotyping methods for epidemiological investigations and global surveillance of C. difficile are required. In this study, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and multilocus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis (MLVA) were performed on a set of 157 spatially and temporally diverse C. difficile isolates that had been previously genotyped by restriction endonuclease analysis (REA) to determine the concordance among these genotyping methods. In addition, sequence analysis of the tcdC genotype was performed to investigate the association of allelic variants with epidemic C. difficile isolates. Overall, the MLST and MLVA data were concordant with REA genotyping data. MLST was less discriminatory than either MLVA or REA, yet this method established C. difficile genetic lineage. MLVA was highly discriminatory and demonstrated relationships among the MLST genetic lineages and REA genotypes that were previously unrecognized. Several tcdC genotypes were specific to epidemic clones, highlighting the possible importance of toxin misregulation in C. difficile disease pathogenesis. This study demonstrates that a combination of MLST and MLVA may prove useful for the investigation and surveillance of emergent C. difficile clones of global public health concern.

SUBMITTER: Marsh JW

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2815614 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Multilocus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis and multilocus sequence typing reveal genetic relationships among Clostridium difficile isolates genotyped by restriction endonuclease analysis.

Marsh Jane W JW O'Leary Mary M MM Shutt Kathleen A KA Sambol Susan P SP Johnson Stuart S Gerding Dale N DN Harrison Lee H LH

Journal of clinical microbiology 20091202 2

Numbers of Clostridium difficile infections have increased worldwide in the past decade. While infection with C. difficile remains predominantly a health care-associated infection, there may also be an increased incidence of community-associated infections. C. difficile strains of public health significance continue to emerge, and reliable genotyping methods for epidemiological investigations and global surveillance of C. difficile are required. In this study, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) a ...[more]

PMID: 19955268

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Project description:No study to date has compared multilocus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis (MLVA) and whole-genome sequencing (WGS) in an investigation of the transmission of Clostridium difficile infection. Isolates from 61 adults with ongoing and/or recurrent C. difficile infections and 17 asymptomatic carriage episodes in children (201 samples), as well as from 61 suspected outbreaks affecting 2 to 41 patients in 31 hospitals in the United Kingdom (300 samples), underwent 7-locus MLVA and WGS in parallel. When the first and last samples from the same individual taken for a median (interquartile range [IQR]) of 63 days (43 to 105 days) apart were compared, the estimated rates of the evolution of single nucleotide variants (SNVs), summed tandem-repeat differences (STRDs), and locus variants (LVs) were 0.79 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.00 to 1.75), 1.63 (95% CI, 0.00 to 3.59), and 1.21 (95% CI, 0.00 to 2.67)/called genome/year, respectively. Differences of >2 SNVs and >10 STRDs have been used to exclude direct case-to-case transmission. With the first serial sample per individual being used to assess discriminatory power, across all pairs of samples sharing a PCR ribotype, 192/283 (68%) differed by >10 STRDs and 217/283 (77%) by >2 SNVs. Among all pairs of cases from the same suspected outbreak, 1,190/1,488 (80%) pairs had concordant results using >2 SNVs and >10 STRDs to exclude transmission. For the discordant pairs, 229 (15%) had ?2 SNVs but ?10 STRDs, and 69 (5%) had ?2 SNVs but ?10 STRDs. Discordant pairs had higher numbers of LVs than concordant pairs, supporting the more diverse measure in each type of discordant pair. Conclusions on whether the potential outbreaks were confirmed were concordant in 58/61 (95%) investigations. Overall findings using MLVA and WGS were very similar despite the fact that they analyzed different parts of the bacterial genome. With improvements in WGS technology, it is likely that MLVA locus data will be available from WGS in the near future.

Project description:BACKGROUND: Shigella flexneri is one of the causative agents of shigellosis, a major cause of childhood mortality in developing countries. Multilocus variable-number tandem repeat (VNTR) analysis (MLVA) is a prominent subtyping method to resolve closely related bacterial isolates for investigation of disease outbreaks and provide information for establishing phylogenetic patterns among isolates. The present study aimed to develop an MLVA method for S. flexneri and the VNTR loci identified were tested on 242 S. flexneri isolates to evaluate their variability in various serotypes. The isolates were also analyzed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) to compare the discriminatory power and to evaluate the usefulness of MLVA as a tool for phylogenetic analysis of S. flexneri. RESULTS: Thirty-six VNTR loci were identified by exploring the repeat sequence loci in genomic sequences of Shigella species and by testing the loci on nine isolates of different subserotypes. The VNTR loci in different serotype groups differed greatly in their variability. The discriminatory power of an MLVA assay based on four most variable VNTR loci was higher, though not significantly, than PFGE for the total isolates, a panel of 2a isolates, which were relatively diverse, and a panel of 4a/Y isolates, which were closely-related. Phylogenetic groupings based on PFGE patterns and MLVA profiles were considerably concordant. The genetic relationships among the isolates were correlated with serotypes. The phylogenetic trees constructed using PFGE patterns and MLVA profiles presented two distinct clusters for the isolates of serotype 3 and one distinct cluster for each of the serotype groups, 1a/1b/NT, 2a/2b/X/NT, 4a/Y, and 6. Isolates that had different serotypes but had closer genetic relatedness than those with the same serotype were observed between serotype Y and subserotype 4a, serotype X and subserotype 2b, subserotype 1a and 1b, and subserotype 3a and 3b. CONCLUSIONS: The 36 VNTR loci identified exhibited considerably different degrees of variability among S. flexneri serotype groups. VNTR locus could be highly variable in a serotype but invariable in others. MLVA assay based on four highly variable loci could display a comparable resolving power to PFGE in discriminating isolates. MLVA is also a prominent molecular tool for phylogenetic analysis of S. flexneri; the resulting data are beneficial to establish clear clonal patterns among different serotype groups and to discern clonal groups among isolates within the same serotype. As highly variable VNTR loci could be serotype-specific, a common MLVA protocol that consists of only a small set of loci, for example four to eight loci, and that provides high resolving power to all S. flexneri serotypes may not be obtainable.

Dataset Information

Multilocus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis and multilocus sequence typing reveal genetic relationships among Clostridium difficile isolates genotyped by restriction endonuclease analysis.

Publications

Multilocus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis and multilocus sequence typing reveal genetic relationships among Clostridium difficile isolates genotyped by restriction endonuclease analysis.

Similar Datasets

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