The Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex includes the four species M. tuberculosis, M. bovis, M. africanum, and M. microti. We sequenced 13 M. tuberculosis complex strains in the 16S-to-23S rDNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS). The ITS has a high rate of nucleotide substitution. Previous reports found three nucleotide substitutions in the ITS between two M. tuberculosis complex strains. In cont...

There is evidence of antigenic diversity and of differences in virulence in Dermatophilus congolensis. For the understanding of the epidemiology of dermatophilosis it is important to distinguish between strains of the organism. Twenty field isolates from cattle in Chad and Cameroon, and an American reference strain, have been examined on restriction fragment length polymorphisms. After restrict...

The conventional methods for identifying mycobacterial species are based on their phenotypic characterization. Since some problematic species are slow growers, their taxonomy takes several weeks or months to identify. The ribosomal DNA (rDNA) sequence-based identification strategy has been adopted to solve this problem. More recently, the gyrB sequences have been shown to be useful phylogenetic...

In the last few years many attempts have been made to differentiate more than 20 Bifidobacterium species. It has been recognized that identification of bifidobacterial species is problematic because of phenetic and genetic heterogeneities. In order to contribute to our understanding of Bifidobacterium taxonomy, we studied Bifidobacterium phylogeny by performing both 16S rRNA and 16S to 23S (16S...

Direct examination † Culture Molecular identification Ring of epithelial cells Giant cells Caseous necrosis Altered leukocytes Reference M. tuberculosis ± + IS6110 + + + – (6) M. avium 183 NR NR NR + NR + + NR NR (7) M. avium subsp. hominissuis 34 NR NR NR + IS1245 NR NR NR NR (5) M. haemophilum 39 NR NR + + 16S–23S rDNA + + + – (8) M. lentiflavum 3 SE Cured + + 16S rRNA + + NR + (9) M. bohemic...

Chromosomal DNA from 26 strains of Providencia stuartii isolated mainly in hospitals in the United Kingdom and reference strains of P. stuartii, P. rustigianii, and Proteus vulgaris were digested with the restriction endonucleases EcoRI and HindIII. After electrophoresis in agarose gels, the fragments were subjected to Southern blot hybridization analysis with a biotin-labeled cDNA probe transc...

The oxazolidinone antimicrobial, linezolid, has been approved for the treatment of infections caused by various gram-positive bacteria, including vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE). This is the first report on isolation of a linezolid resistant, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (LRVREF) strain in Poland, from a Haematological Unit patient in the Clinical Hospital in Gdańsk. PCR-RFL...

A rapid and reliable PCR-based method for distinguishing closely related species within two groups of lactobacilli is described. Primers complementary to species-specific sequences in the 16S/23S rDNA spacer regions were designed after sequencing and sequence comparison of the spacer regions of 32 strains. The strains belong to two groups of closely related Lactobacillus species; one composed o...