The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the usefulness of a co-agglutination procedure for the typing of Flavobacterium meningosepticum. The sensitivity and specificity of the co-agglutination test was compared to the slide agglutination test using reference strains of the bacterial species. Antisera were characterized by both technics to determine their titer and working dilution. The specificity of the sera was assessed by performing tests which include strains of other species and serotypes. A collection of 47 strains of F. meningosepticum isolated from clinical specimens were typed by both co-agglutination and slide agglutination methods. Co-agglutination proved to be markedly more specific than the slide procedure although both methods were similar in sensitivity. It was concluded that co-agglutination proved to be an excellent method for the serotyping of F. meningosepticum.
The constancy of strain genotypes of multiple isolates of Burkholderia pseudomallei from 13 patients with melioidosis was examined by BamHI ribotyping and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) of XbaI digests of DNA. Seven of 8 patients with single episodes of melioidosis each yielded genetically identical isolates and only one of five patients with recurrent episodes was infected with a new strain clearly distinct from the original primary strain. Variation was observed in PFGE patterns of primary and relapse isolates of another patient but this was insufficient to define genetically distinct strains. We conclude that most patients with single or multiple episodes of melioidosis retain a single strain.