Comparison of PCR-based molecular markers for the characterization of Proteus mirabilis clinical isolates

Area of Science:

• Microbiology
• Infectious Diseases
• Molecular Typing

Background:

• Proteus mirabilis is a significant pathogen causing complicated urinary tract infections and bacteremia.
• Current molecular typing methods like PFGE are labor-intensive and time-consuming.
• Efficient methods are needed for epidemiological tracking of P. mirabilis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the discriminatory power of various PCR-based fingerprinting techniques for clinical P. mirabilis isolates.
• To identify rapid and reliable methods for differentiating P. mirabilis strains for epidemiological purposes.

Main Methods:

• Evaluated Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD), Inter-Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR), Enterobacterial Repetitive Intergenic Consensus PCR (ERIC-PCR), BOX-PCR, and Repetitive Sequence-Based PCR (rep-PCR).
• Analyzed typing patterns and clustering of P. mirabilis clinical isolates.
• Compared discriminatory efficiency of different PCR methods.

Main Results:

• RAPD, BOX-PCR, and ERIC-PCR effectively differentiated P. mirabilis from other bacterial species (E. coli, H. alvei, M. morganii).
• Most PCR methods, except rep-PCR, showed medium to high discriminatory efficiency for P. mirabilis.
• RAPD, BOX-PCR, and ERIC-PCR yielded largely consistent results.

Conclusions:

• A combination of ERIC-PCR and BOX-PCR provides a rapid, reliable, and efficient alternative for discriminating P. mirabilis clinical isolates.
• These PCR-based methods can significantly aid epidemiological studies of P. mirabilis infections.