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Discrimination of Human Pathogenic Subspecies of Francisella tularensis by Using Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism

Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, CBS Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP4 0JQ,¹ Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, United Kingdom,⁵ Department of Clinical Microbiology, Clinical Bacteriology,² Department of Clinical Microbiology, Infectious Diseases, Umeå University, SE-901 85 Umeå,³ NBC-Analysis Swedish Defence Research Agency, SE-901 82 Umeå, Sweden⁴

Received 5 August 2002/ Returned for modification 14 September 2002/ Accepted 24 October 2002

We describe the use of two insertion sequence elements (ISFtu1 and ISFtu2) in Francisella tularensis to type strains by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). The RFLP profiles of 17 epidemiologically unrelated isolates were determined and compared. Our results showed that RFLP profiles can be used to assign F. tularensis strains into five main groups corresponding to strains of F. tularensis subsp. tularensis, F. tularensis strain ATCC 6223, strains of F. tularensis subsp. holarctica, strains of F. tularensis subsp. holarctica from Japan, and F. tularensis subsp. mediaasiatica. The results confirm the genetic identities of these subspecies and also support the suggestion that strains of F. tularensis subsp. holarctica from Japan should be considered members of a separate biovar. These findings should support future studies to determine the genetic differences between strains of F. tularensis at the whole-genome level.

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