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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, January 2007, p. 223-230, Vol. 51, No. 1
0066-4804/07/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/AAC.00611-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Service de Bactériologie-Virologie, Hôpital de Bicêtre, Assistance Publique/Hôpitaux de Paris, Faculté de Médecine Paris-Sud, Université Paris XI, 94275 Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France
Received 18 May 2006/ Returned for modification 21 July 2006/ Accepted 23 October 2006
CTX-M extended-spectrum ß-lactamases (ESBLs) are increasingly prevalent worldwide among Escherichia coli bacteria, mostly in community-acquired urinary tract infections. Finding a fast and reliable technique for identification of CTX-M enzymes is becoming a challenge for the microbiology laboratory. A fast real-time PCR amplification technique, using degenerated primers specific for all the blaCTX-M alleles, coupled to real-time pyrosequencing was developed. The five CTX-M groups were unambiguously identified by pyrosequencing a 13-bp DNA region. Further sequencing of an additional 16-bp region allowed further division into subgroups. Phylogenetic trees constructed with the entire blaCTX-M genes and with both pyrosequenced regions (29 bp) gave similar results, suggesting that this technique, termed the real-time detection and sequencing method, has a powerful discriminatory ability. This high-throughput technique has been evaluated by screening 48 ESBL-producing E. coli isolates recovered from the Bicêtre hospital (France) in 2004. Forty-four of these strains were CTX-M positive by real-time PCR detection and direct pyrosequencing of the PCR products, which identified CTX-M-15 as the main CTX-M-type ß-lactamase. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analysis of these strains revealed that several clones, of which one CTX-M-15-positive clone was predominant (60%), were identified both in nosocomial and in community-acquired isolates. The combination of real-time PCR with pyrosequencing represents a powerful tool for epidemiological studies of CTX-M producers. This assay has the potential to be used in a diagnostic laboratory since up to 96 bacterial isolates may be screened in less than 3 h.
Published ahead of print on 6 November 2006.
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