Comparative analysis of infrequent-restriction-site PCR and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis for epidemiological typing of Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 strains.

Two methods were compared for the analysis of 48 unrelated and epidemiologically related Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 isolates. These are the infrequent-restriction-site PCR (IRS-PCR) assay with adapters designed for XbaI and PstI restriction sites and the pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) analysis determined after DNA restriction with SfiI. Both methods demonstrated a high level of discrimination with a similar capacity for differentiating 23 of the 24 unrelated isolates. PFGE analysis and IRS-PCR assay were both able to identify epidemiologically related isolates of L. pneumophila from three outbreaks. Hence, IRS-PCR assay appears to be a reproducible (intergel reproducibility, 100%) and discriminative (discriminatory index, > or = 0.996) tool for typing of Legionella. Compared to PFGE, however, IRS-PCR presented an advantage through ease of performance and with attributes of rapidity and sensitivity of target DNA.