Korean J Clin Pathol.  1999 Aug;19(4):440-445.

Application of random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) for the epidemiological study of an outbreak of Candida albicans septicemia in neonatal intensive care units

• Shin KS
• Hong SB
• Shin HS
• Park BS
• Son BR

Abstract

BACKGROUND
The opportunistic imperfect fungus Candida albicans causing life-threatening infections in immunocompromised patients is recognized to be one of important nosocomial pathogens. Recently, an outbreak of septicemia caused by C. albicans was occured in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of Chungbuk university hospital. To investigate the molecular epidemiology of these infections, we analyzed genotypes of C. albicans isolates from NICU and non-NICU.
METHODS
Fourteen isolates of C. albicans were used for intraspecies genotyping, which were composed of 9 isolates from NICU and 5 isolates from non-NICU from January to April 1998. Each three isolates of C. albicans, C. parapsilosis and C. tropicalis were used for interspecies genotyping. The genotyping were analyzed by RAPD with four random primers.
RESULTS
The genotypes of C. albicans isolates from immature neonates in NICU were identical with those from medical persons in NICU but different with those from patients in non-NICU. Interspecies RAPD profiles were more distinctive than intraspecies RAPD profiles. The reproducibility of RAPD showed good result.
CONCLUSION
These results show that C. albicans isolated from NICU disclose the same RAPD genotype, which suggests the clonal origin, and RAPD can be the useful method for the epidemiological study of nosocomial infection caused by C.albicans.

Keyword

RAPD; Candida albicans; genotyping; nosocomial infection

MeSH Terms

Candida albicans*
Candida*
Chungcheongbuk-do
Cross Infection
DNA*
Epidemiologic Studies*
Fungi
Genotype
Humans
Immunocompromised Host
Infant, Newborn
Intensive Care Units, Neonatal*
Intensive Care, Neonatal*
Molecular Epidemiology
Sepsis*
DNA