title: Molecular fingerprinting of fish-pathogenic Lactococcus garvieae strains by random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis.
abstract: In this work, we used the random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique to evaluate the genetic diversity in Lactococcus garvieae, an important pathogen for fish. Fifty-seven strains with different hosts and geographical origins, including Japan and several countries of the Mediterranean area such as Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, England, and Turkey, were analyzed. Two primers, oligonucleotides 5 and 6 (Pharmacia Biotech) were utilized; primer 5 was the most discriminative, since allowed us to differentiate 10 RAPD -types related to the origin of the strains. Regardless of the oligonucleotide primer employed, the 57 isolates of L. garvieae studied were separated into three genetic groups, composed of the Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Turkish strains (group A), the Italian and French strains (group B), and the Japanese strains (group C). The similarity of isolates within each group, estimated on the basis of the Dice coefficient, ranged from 75 to 100%. Our findings also indicate that RAPD profiling constitutes a useful tool for epidemiological studies of this fish pathogen.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Microbiología y Parasitología, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ravelo
authors.forename: Beatriz
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Magariños
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: López-Romalde
authors.forename: Alicia E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Toranzo
authors.forename: Jesús L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Romalde
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000032:analysis; D005393:Fish Diseases / Q000382:microbiology*; D005399:Fishes / Q000382:microbiology*; D014644:Genetic Variation; D017045:Lactococcus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D019105:Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA Technique / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial