Oligonucleotide (GTG)5 in bacterial DNA fingerprinting.

On a set of 198 bacterial strains out of 19 different species we have tested the ability of oligonucleotide (GTG)5 to provide definitive DNA fingerprints. All the tested bacteria gave rise to at least one band after digestion with Hinf I and hybridization with radioabelled oligonucleotide (GTG)5. The number of resulting bands varied considerably from species to species and correlated strongly with the GC content of individual bacterial species. A set of 13 well defined laboratory strains of Escherichia coli was divided into 3 groups after GTG fingerprinting, while standard ribotyping revealed no differences. GTG fingerprinting is simple and reliable method for typing bacteria and may be of particular value in those bacterial species, where no other typing systems are available.