Genotyping of clinical Rhodotorula mucilaginosa isolates by pulsed field gel electrophoresis.

Identification and typing of fungal isolates is a prerequisite for control and prevention of nosocomial infections. As the discriminatory power of phenotypic methods is not sufficient for epidemiological purposes, genotyping methods such as DNA fingerprinting, random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis, or pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) are preferred. To our knowledge, this study is the first application of PFGE for typing Rhodotorula mucilaginosa strains. The PFGE patterns of six clinical isolates produced two different karyotypes, which were confirmed by RAPD analysis. Five strains isolated from bloodstream infections from three different institutions showed the same karyotype and RAPD patterns, while the urological specimen differed slightly.