Genotypic analysis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from ocular infection

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the causative pathogen of keratitis, conjunctivitis, and dacryocystitis. However little is known about their clinical epidemiology in Japan. In this study we investigated the genotypic characterization and serotype of P. aeruginosa isolates from ocular infections. Thirty-four clinical P. aeruginosa isolates were characterized according to infection type, the type III secretion system (TTSS), serotype, and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). We divided the isolates into four clinical infection types as follows: Contact lens (CL)-related keratitis (CL-keratitis; 15 isolates), non CL-related keratitis (non CL-keratitis; 8 isolates), conjunctivitis (7 isolates), and dacryocystitis (4 isolates). Regarding the TTSS classification and serotyping classification, no significant differences were found among the infection types. Two clusters (I, II) and three subclusters (A, B, C) were classified according to MLST. CL-keratitis isolates with exoU positivity were clustered in II-B, and conjunctivitis was clustered in cluster I. Some linkage was found between the genetic background and CL-keratitis or conjunctivitis.