Rapid and Simple Determination of the Escherichia coli Phylogenetic Group

• DOI: 10.1128/aem.66.10.4555-4558.2000
• Publication Date: 2002-07-27T09:55:30Z
• Authors: Olivier Clermont; Stéphane Bonacorsi; Edouard Bingen
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; Virulence; Infant, Newborn; Ribotyping; Enzymes; Meningitis, Bacterial; 3. Good health; 03 medical and health sciences; Escherichia coli; Humans; Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel; Phylogeny

ABSTRACT

Phylogenetic analysis has shown that Escherichia coli is composed of four main phylogenetic groups (A, B1, B2, and D) and that virulent extra-intestinal strains mainly belong to groups B2 and D. Actually, phylogenetic groups can be determined by multilocus enzyme electrophoresis or ribotyping, both of which are complex, time-consuming techniques. We describe a simple and rapid phylogenetic grouping technique based on triplex PCR. The method, which uses a combination of two genes ( chuA and yjaA ) and an anonymous DNA fragment, was tested with 230 strains and showed excellent correlation with reference methods.