Premium
Genotypic intraspecies heterogeneity of Enterococcus italicus : data from dairy environments
Author(s) -
Borgo Francesca,
Ferrario Chiara,
Ricci Giovanni,
Fortina Maria Grazia
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of basic microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.58
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1521-4028
pISSN - 0233-111X
DOI - 10.1002/jobm.201100464
Subject(s) - biology , plasmid , gene , genetics , pseudogene , enterococcus , virulence , genome , microbiology and biotechnology , bacteria
The diversity of a collection of 19 Enterococcus italicus strains isolated from different dairy sources was explored using a molecular polyphasic approach, comprising random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD‐PCR), repetitive element PCR (REP‐PCR), plasmid profiling and ribotyping. The data obtained showed a high‐level of biodiversity, not always correlated to the niche of isolation. Particularly, REP‐PCR with primer BOXA1R and plasmid profiling allowed the best discrimination at strain level. Exploiting the genome shotgun sequence of the type strain of the species, available in public database, genes related to insertion sequences present on enterococcal Pathogenic Islands (IS Ef1 , IS 905 ), determinants related to virulence factors (codifying for hemolysin and cell wall surface proteins), exogenously DNA (conjugal transfer protein, replication plasmid protein, pheromone shutdown protein, phage integrase/recombinase) and penicillin binding proteins system were detected. The presence of most of these genes seemed a common genetic trait in the Enterococcus genus, sur gene (cell wall surface protein) was only detected in strains of E. italicus . To our knowledge, this is the first time that specific primers, with the expection of the species‐specific probe targeted to 16S rRNA gene, have been designed for this species.