Background:
Although melioidosis in endemic regions
is usually caused by a diverse range of
Burkholderia pseudomallei
strains, clonal outbreaks from co
ntaminated potable water have been
described. Furthermore
B. pseudomallei
is classified as a CDC Gr
oup B bioterrorism agent.
Ribotyping, pulsed-field gel ele
ctrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) have
been used to identify genetically related
B. pseudomallei
isolates, but they are time consuming and
technically challenging
for many laboratories.
Methods:
We have adapted repetitive sequence typ
ing using a BOX A1R primer for typing
B.
pseudomallei
and compared BOX-PCR fingerprinting resu
lts on a wide range of well-characterized
B. pseudomallei
isolates with MLST and PFGE pe
rformed on the same isolates.
Results:
BOX-PCR typing compared favourably with
MLST and PFGE performed on the same
isolates, both discriminating
between the majority of multiloc
us sequence types and showing
relatedness between epidemiolo
gically linked isolates from
various outbre
ak clusters.
Conclusion:
Our results suggest that BOX-PCR can be
used to exclude a clonal outbreak of
melioidosis within 10 hours of receiving the bacterial strains.