The incidence of food-borne salmonellosis due to Salmonella enterica serotype Weltevreden is reported to be on the increase in Malaysia. The pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) subtyping method was used to assess the extent of genetic diversity and clonality of Salmonella serotype Weltevreden strains from humans and the environment. PFGE of XbaI-digested chromosomal DNA from 95 strains of Salmonella serotype Weltevreden gave 39 distinct profiles with a wide range of Dice coefficients (0.27 to 1.00), indicating that PFGE is very discriminative and that multiple clones of Salmonella serotype Weltevreden exist among clinical and environmental isolates. Strains of one dominant pulsotype (pulsotype X1/X2) appeared to be endemic in this region, as they were consistently recovered from humans with salmonellosis between 1996 and 2001 and from raw vegetables. In addition, the sharing of similar PFGE profiles among isolates from humans, vegetables, and beef provides indirect evidence of the possible transmission of salmonellosis from contaminated raw vegetables and meat to humans. Furthermore, the recurrence of PFGE profile X21 among isolates found in samples of vegetables from one wet market indicated the persistence of this clone. The environment in the wet markets may represent a major source of cross-contamination of vegetables with Salmonella serotype Weltevreden. Antibiotic sensitivity tests showed that the clinical isolates of Salmonella serotype Weltevreden remained drug sensitive but that the vegetable isolates were resistant to at least two antibiotics. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to compare clinical and environmental isolates of Salmonella serotype Weltevreden in Malaysia.

Aims:The study was undertaken to determine clonal relationship and genetic diversity of the human strains of Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis isolated from 1995 to 2002 from different parts of Malaysia. Methods and Results: Antimicrobial susceptibility test, plasmid profiling and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis were applied to analyse 65 human isolates of S. Enteritidis obtained over an eight year period from different parts of Malaysia. Four nonhuman isolates were included for comparison. A total of 14 distinct XbaI-pulsed-field profiles (PFPs) were observed, although a single PFP X1 was predominant and this particular clone was found to be endemic in Malaysia. The incidence of drug resistant S. Enteritidis remained relatively low with only 37% of the strains analysed being resistant to one or more antimicrobial agents. All except one resistant strain carried at least one plasmid ranging in size from 3AE7 to 62 MDa giving nine plasmid profiles. The three isolates from raw milk and one from well-water had similar PFPs to that of the human isolates. Conclusions: Salmonella Enteritidis strains were more diverse than was previously thought. Fourteen subtypes were noted although one predominant clone persisted in Malaysia. The combination of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, plasmid profiling and antibiograms provided additional discrimination to the highly clonal strains of S. Enteritidis. Significance and Impact of the Study: This is the first report to assess the genotypes of the predominant clinical S. Enteritidis in different parts of the country. As S. Enteritidis is highly endemic in Malaysia, the data generated would be useful for tracing the source during outbreaks of gastroenteritis in the study area.

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The emergence and spread of multiresistant methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains, especially those resistant to fusidic acid and rifampicin, in Malaysian hospitals is of concern. In this study DNA fingerprinting by PFGE was performed on fusidic acid-and rifampicin-resistant isolates from Malaysian hospitals to determine the genetic relatedness of these isolates and their relationship with the endemic MRSA strains. In all, 32 of 640 MRSA isolates from 9 Malaysian hospitals were resistant to fusidic acid and rifampicin. Seven PFGE types (A, ZC, ZI, ZJ, ZK, ZL and ZM) were observed. The commonest type was type ZC, seen in 72% of isolates followed by type A, seen in 13%. Each of the other types (ZI, ZJ, ZK, ZL and ZM) was observed in a single isolate. Each type, even the commonest, was found in only one hospital. This suggests that the resistant strains had arisen from individual MRSA strains in each hospital and not as a result of the transmission of a common clone.

The present study verifies the usefulness of PFGE in characterizing and comparing strains of S. sonnei. Minor variations among S. sonnei isolates could be detected by PFGE.