Comparison of Repetitive Sequence-based Polymerase Chain Reaction (rep-PCR) and Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) for Genetic Characterization of Arcobacter spp.

Abstract

Arcobacter has been associated with foodborne illness in humans. Recently, this organism has been receiving more attention as a pathogen of public health concern. The contamination of Arcobacter is frequently observed in foods of animal origin especially poultry products; however, the source of contamination as well as the molecular epidemiology of Arcobacter is not clearly understood. In the present study, we compared the use of repetitive sequence-based polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR) and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) for genetic characterization of Arcobacter. Thirty Arcobacter butzleri isolates from retail chicken carcasses and 3 Arcobacter reference strains were typed with rep-PCR and PFGE. Rep-PCR yielded 27 fingerprint patterns, while PFGE yielded 29 PFGE patterns. Two pairs of Arcobacter isolates that exhibited the same rep-PCR pattern yielded different PFGE patterns. Discriminatory power determined by Simpson’s index of diversity of rep-PCR was as high as 0.989,
comparable to 0.992 as obtained by PFGE. Concordance of the two methods as determined by Adjusted Rand coefficient was 0.798. Prediction of PFGE results by rep-PCR results was quantified by Wallace coefficient, which showed the value of 0.667. Together, our study shows that rep-PCR can be used as an effective screening tool for studying genetic profiles of Arcobacter