Abstrakt
The taxonomic entity "Burkholderia cepacia complex" (Bcc) represents a group of clinically problematic Burkholderia organisms. They can infect patients with cystic fibrosis and cause serious epidemic outbreaks.
Because of their close phenotypic and genetic relatedness, identification of individual Bcc species is dependent on the use of molecular genetic methods which are in most instances based on analysis of the recA gene. Accurate genotyping of bacterial isolates can be carried out by means of various PCR-based methods (such as random amplified polymorphic DNA assay or rep-PCR) and also macrorestriction/pulsed field gel electrophoresis, but it is multilocus sequence typing that is fast becoming a new reference typing method thanks to its ease of interpretation and possibility to trace distribution of Bcc clones on a global scale.