OBJECTIVE To investigate antibiotic resistance and genetic relatedness of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolated in a general hospital in Kuwait over a period from 1996 to 1998 and 2001. MATERIAL AND METHODS The isolates were characterized by antibacterial susceptibility testing, coagulase serotyping, coagulase gene polymorphism (coag-RFLP) and pulsed-field gel electropho...

We determined nearly complete flagellin gene sequences for Borrelia burdgdorferi sensu lato isolates (11 isolates obtained from Ixodes persulcatus ticks and patients in Hokkaido, Japan, and 1 European isolate) representing six different restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) ribotype groups following cloning of the PCR-amplified genes. These sequences were aligned with those of represe...

Spoligotyping (for spacer oligotyping) is an easy, economical, and rapid way of typing Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex strains with the DR spacer markers (J. Kamerbeek et al., J. Clin. Microbiol. 35:907-914, 1997; D. van Soolingen et al., 33:3234-3248, 1995). The stability of the markers was demonstrated by showing that all the Mycobacterium bovis BCG strains tested gave the same spoligotypi...

Microbial eukaryotes in seawater samples collected from two depths (5 m and 500 m) at the USC Microbial Observatory off the coast of Southern California, USA, were characterized by cloning and sequencing of 18S rRNA genes, as well as DNA fragment analysis of these genes. The sequenced genes were assigned to operational taxonomic units (OTUs), and taxonomic information for the sequence-based OTU...

An evaluation of 18 DNA restriction endonucleases for use in terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis was performed by using richness and density indices in conjunction with computer simulations for 4,603 bacterial small-subunit rRNA gene sequences. T-RFLP analysis has become a commonly used method for screening environmental samples for precursory identification and ...

We applied ribosomal DNA PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) RFLP analyses to 43 Acanthamoeba environmental isolates (KA/LH1 to KA/LH43) from contact lens storage cases in southwestern Korea. These isolates were compared to American Type Culture Collection strains and clinical isolates (KA/E1 to KA/E12) from patients with keratitis. Seven riboprint ...

Twenty-eight enteroviral isolates obtained from various clinical specimens were typed by Lim-Benyesh-Melnick (LBM) pool-based neutralization, PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), and partial sequencing of the VP1 region of the enteroviral genome. Sequencing was found to be a good alternative to LBM typing, while PCR-RFLP was inadequate for identification of enteroviral isolates.

The discrimination of Leishmania species from patient samples has epidemiological and clinical relevance. In this study, different gene target PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) protocols were evaluated for their robustness as Leishmania species discriminators in 61 patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis. We modified the hsp70-PCR-RFLP protocol and found it to be the most reliab...

The analysis of T-RFLP data has developed considerably over the last decade, but there remains a lack of consensus about which statistical analyses offer the best means for finding trends in these data. In this study, we empirically tested and theoretically compared ten diverse T-RFLP datasets derived from soil microbial communities using the more common ordination methods in the literature: pr...

The restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP) of the Japanese quail MHC were assayed in seven lines using PvuII-digested DNA and a chicken Class II probe. The lines of Japanese quail surveyed included a randombred control population (R1) and sublines of R1 divergently selected for 4-wk body weight (HW and LW lines) or plasma yolk precursor as measured by total plasma phosphorus (TPP) (HP...