Open AccessRalstonia paucula (Formerly CDC Group IV c-2): Unsuccessful Strain Differentiation with PCR-Based Methods, Study of the 16S-23S Spacer of the rRNA Operon, and Comparison with Other Ralstonia Species ( R. eutropha , R. pickettii , R. gilardii , and R. solanacearum )
Author(s) -
Didier Moissenet,
Philippe Bidet,
Antoine GarbargChe,
Guillaume Arlet,
Hoang Vu-Thien
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of clinical microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.349
H-Index - 255
eISSN - 1070-633X
pISSN - 0095-1137
DOI - 10.1128/jcm.39.1.381-384.2001
Subject(s) - ribotyping , biology , spacer dna , ribosomal dna , 23s ribosomal rna , restriction fragment length polymorphism , microbiology and biotechnology , ribosomal rna , 16s ribosomal rna , ralstonia , genetics , polymerase chain reaction , internal transcribed spacer , gene , phylogenetics , ribosome , rna
Ralstonia paucula (formerly CDC group IV c-2) can cause serious human infections. Confronted in 1995 with five cases of nosocomial bacteremia, we found that pulsed-field gel electrophoresis could not distinguish between the isolates and that randomly amplified polymorphic DNA analysis was poorly discriminatory. In this study, we used PCR-ribotyping and PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of the spacer 16S-23S ribosomal DNA (rDNA); both methods were unable to differentiate R. paucula isolates. Eighteen strains belonging to other Ralstonia species (one R. eutropha strain, six R. pickettii strains, three R. solanacearum strains, and eight R. gilardii strains) were also tested by PCR-ribotyping, which failed to distinguish between the four species. The 16S-23S rDNA intergenic spacer of R. paucula contains the tRNA(Ile) and tRNA(Ala) genes, which are identical to genes described for R. pickettii and R. solanacearum.