Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, 600 036 India ; Department of Microbiology, Frontier Lifeline Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, 600101 India.
Indian J Microbiol. 2008 Jun;48(2):291-6. doi: 10.1007/s12088-008-0017-2. Epub 2008 May 28.
Streptococcus agalactiae is reported to be an asymptomatic vaginal colonizer in Indian women, although it is considered one of the major causes of neonatal infections in many European countries. DNA based molecular typing methods are more reliable than the conventional serotyping method for identification and typing of this pathogen. In the present study, we have evaluated genetic diversity among colonizing S. agalactiae strains (n=86) by using a PCR-based genotyping method i.e. Enterobacterial Repetitive Intergenic Consensus PCR (ERIC-PCR). With ERIC-PCR fingerprinting at 60% similarity level in a dendrogram generated by UPGMA cluster analysis, 10 different ERIC groups were identified, which were subdivided into 62 distinct genotypes at ≥ 95% similarity level. Based on these findings, we demonstrate that ERIC-PCR is a simple, rapid, and inexpensive tool with sufficient discriminatory power and is applicable for characterization and genotyping of a large number of clinical isolates of S. agalactiae at molecular level.
无乳链球菌被报道为印度女性无症状的阴道定植菌，尽管它被认为是许多欧洲国家新生儿感染的主要原因之一。基于 DNA 的分子分型方法比传统的血清分型方法更可靠，可用于鉴定和分型这种病原体。在本研究中，我们通过使用基于 PCR 的基因分型方法，即肠细菌重复基因间一致性 PCR（ERIC-PCR），评估了定植无乳链球菌菌株（n=86）的遗传多样性。在 UPGMA 聚类分析生成的树状图中，以 60%的相似度水平进行 ERIC-PCR 指纹图谱分析，确定了 10 种不同的 ERIC 组，在≥95%相似度水平下进一步细分为 62 种不同的基因型。基于这些发现，我们证明 ERIC-PCR 是一种简单、快速、廉价的工具，具有足够的区分能力，适用于对大量无乳链球菌临床分离株进行分子水平的特征描述和基因分型。
