Discrimination of Mycobacterium avium- Mycobacterium intracellulare strains by genomic DNA fingerprinting with a 16S rRNA gene probe

Abstract Ribotyping was investigated as a means of distinguishing ten different serotyped reference strains and seven epidemiologically unrelated isolates of Mycobacterium avium - Mycobacterium intracellulare using a labelled 16S rDNA probe. Thirteen restriction enzymes were screened towards an accurate discrimination of strins. Two selected restriction enzymes ( Sac I and Cla I) enabled us to classify the 17 strains into ten ribotypes with an index of discrimination of 0.897. Typeability and reproductibility of the method reached 100%. The patterns obtained exhibited polymorphism of RE fragments within and outside the 16S rRNA gene and may be useful for epidemiological studies.