Dominique Blanc Lab

Molecular epidemiology of nosocomial infection

Nosocomial infections are an increasing problem in every countries. To prevent their occurrence, we need to understand their epidemiology, especially their source and mode of transmission. For that particular purpose, the use of molecular typing methods is required.

Our laboratory is involved in the development of new typing methods, their evaluation for epidemiological investigation and their application to specific topics.

• We developed a concept for molecular typing of bacterial species which consist in single strand sequencing of about 500 bps of two highly polymorphic genes. This Double Locus Sequence Typing (DLST) scheme was developed for Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and is currently under development for Clostridium difficile. A web site for standardization of type has been setup. The advantages of DLST are the high reproducibility, even between laboratories, and the unambiguous definition of type, allowing the creation of databases shared through Internet.
• With the advance of naext generation sequencing, we are using whole genome sequencing (WGS) as a new method for bacterial typing in epidemiological investigation such as outbreaks. Our interest is focus on the evaluation of whole genome multi locu sequence typing (wgMLST) as a genomic typing method.
• Numerous examples of application of molecular typing to nosocomial infections can be found in our publication list.