IS1245 restriction fragment length polymorphism typing of Mycobacterium avium isolates: proposal for standardization.

D. van Soolingen (1) , J. Bauer (2) , V. Ritacco (3) , S. Cardoso Leão (4) , I. Pavlik (5) , V. Vincent (6) , Nalin Rastogi (7) , A. Gori (8) , T. Bodmer (9) , C. Garzelli (10) , M. J. Garcia (11)

1 Diagnostic Laboratory of Infectious Diseases and Perinatal Screening
2 Department of Mycobacteriology, Division of Diagnostics
3 Pan American Institute for Food Protection and Zoonoses
4 Departamento de Microbiologia, Imunologia e Parasitologia
5 Veterinary Research Institute
6 Laboratoire de Référence des Mycobactéries
7 Institut Pasteur de la Guadeloupe
8 Clinic of Infectious Diseases, Luigi Sacco Hospital
9 Institute for Medical Microbiology
10 UNIBE - Universität Bern [Bern]
11 Departmento de M. Preventiva, Facultad de Medicina

Mycobacterium avium has become a major human pathogen, primarily due to the emergence of the AIDS epidemic. Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) typing, using insertion sequence IS1245 as a probe, provides a powerful tool in the molecular epidemiology of M. avium-related infections and will facilitate well-founded studies into the sources of M. avium infections in animal and environmental reservoirs. The standardization of this technique allows computerization of IS1245 RFLP patterns for comparison on a local level and the establishment of M. avium DNA fingerprint databases for interlaboratory comparison. Moreover, by combining international DNA typing results of M. avium complex isolates from a broad spectrum of sources, long-lasting questions on the epidemiology of this major agent of mycobacterial infections will be answered.

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Microbiology and Parasitology; Bacteriology

D. van Soolingen, J. Bauer, V. Ritacco, S. Cardoso Leão, I. Pavlik, et al.. IS1245 restriction fragment length polymorphism typing of Mycobacterium avium isolates: proposal for standardization.. Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 1998, 36 (10), pp.3051-3054. ⟨pasteur-00931158⟩