Identification and genotypic analysis of Streptococcus spp. isolated from Giant Pandas in China by PCR-based methods

PCR-based methods were frequently used for identification and analysis of microorganisms. In this study 8 Streptococcus strains isolated from Giant Pandas in different parts of China were identified by amplification of 16S ribosomal RNA sequence by PCR. Genomic diversities of 8 identified Streptococcus strains were analyzed by repetitive extragenic palindromic PCR (REP-PCR) and enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus sequence PCR (ERIC-PCR). REP-PCR and ERIC-PCR fingerprinting showed different patterns of each Streptococcus. The cluster analysis revealed there is a low level of similarity among these isolated Streptococci which were separated into different subtypes and the same serotype Streptococci were divided into sub-genotypes. REP-PCR and ERIC-PCR fingerprinting results were correlated with serotype. The results also demonstrated the two PCR methods have good discriminative ability and have potential as rapid methods for typing Streptococcus as well as high genomic diversity of Streptococci of pandas. Keywords: Streptococcus, REP-PCR, ERIC-PCR, serotype, Giant Panda.