Genotypic diversity of three opportunistic pathogens in NICU

In neonatal intensive care units (NICU), nosocomial infections often originate from the transmission of opportunistic pathogens (OPs) from the sink-environment to patients. We have investigated the distribution and genotypic diversity of the OPs Serratia marcescens, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia in the sink environment of two NICU. In this study, we developed a new molecular typing approach, called High-Throughtput Short Sequence Typing (HiSST), to identify the three OPs in large samples with accurate and specificity. HiSST analysis allows comparison of relatedness between strains isolated from clinical and sink-environment samples.