Molecular typing of epidemic and nonepidemic Vibrio cholerae isolates and differentiation of V. cholerae and V. mimicus isolates by PCR-single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the utility of polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis to differentiate epidemic and nonepidemic Vibrio cholerae isolates as well as to differentiate V. cholerae and Vibrio mimicus isolates.


RESULTS
By both PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and PCR-SSCP analysis of groEL-I on chromosome 1 and groEL-II on chromosome 2, V. cholerae isolates gave distinct profiles compared with V. mimicus isolates. In addition, PCR-SSCP analysis of groEL-I and groEL-II could differentiate between V. cholerae epidemic and nonepidemic isolates. Interestingly, the relationships among strains based on groEL-I from chromosome 1 and groEL-II from chromosome 2 were congruent with each other, highlighting the conserved evolutionary history of both chromosomes in this species.


CONCLUSIONS
PCR-SSCP is a powerful typing technique, which has the ability to differentiate V. cholerae and V. mimicus isolates. The epidemic V. cholerae O1/O139 serogroup isolates represent a clonal complex distinct from non-O1/non-O139 isolates that can be identified by PCR-SSCP analysis.


CONCLUSIONS
This study highlights the effectiveness of using reliable molecular typing methods and in particular PCR-SSCP, to identify genetic variation among V. cholerae and V. mimicus isolates.
Reen
F J
FJ
Department of Microbiology, University College Cork, National University of Ireland, Cork, Ireland.
Boyd
E F
EF
D001431:Bacteriological Techniques; D001483:Base Sequence; D018834:Chaperonin 60 / Q000235:genetics; D002771:Cholera / Q000382:microbiology; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D005798:Genes, Bacterial; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018807:Polymorphism, Single-Stranded Conformational; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D014734:Vibrio cholerae / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D044164:Vibrio mimicus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D014871:Water Microbiology
D018834:Chaperonin 60