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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 04 1996, 818-823, Vol 34, No. 4
SH Goh, S Potter, JO Wood, SM Hemmingsen, RP Reynolds and AW Chow
A set of universal degenerate primers which amplified, by PCR, a 600-bp
oligomer encoding a portion of the 60-kDa heat shock protein (HSP60) of
both Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis were developed.
However, when used as a DNA probe, the 600-bp PCR product generated from S.
epidermidis failed to cross-hybridize under high- stringency conditions
with the genomic DNA of S. aureus and vice versa. To investigate whether
species-specific sequences might exist within the highly conserved HSP60
genes among different staphylococci, digoxigenin-labelled HSP60 probes
generated by the degenerate HSP60 primers were prepared from the six most
commonly isolated Staphylococcus species (S. aureus 8325-4, S. epidermidis
9759, S. haemolyticus ATCC 29970, S. schleiferi ATCC 43808, S.
saprophyticus KL122, and S. lugdunensis CRSN 850412). These probes were
used for dot blot hybridization with genomic DNA of 58 reference and
clinical isolates of Staphylococcus and non-Staphylococcus species. These
six Staphylococcus species HSP60 probes correctly identified the entire set
of staphylococcal isolates. The species specificity of these HSP60 probes
was further demonstrated by dot blot hybridization with PCR- amplified DNA
from mixed cultures of different Staphylococcus species and by the partial
DNA sequences of these probes. In addition, sequence homology searches of
the NCBI BLAST databases with these partial HSP60 DNA sequences yielded the
highest matching scores for both S. epidermidis and S. aureus with the
corresponding species-specified probes. Finally, the HSP60 degenerate
primers were shown to amplify an anticipated 600-bp PCR product from all 29
Staphylococcus species and from all but 2 of 30 other microbial species,
including various gram- positive and gram-negative bacteria, mycobacteria,
and fungi. These preliminary data suggest the presence of species-specific
sequence variation within the highly conserved HSP60 genes of
staphylococci. Further work is required to determine whether these
degenerate HSP60 primers may be exploited for species-specific microbic
identification and phylogenetic investigation of staphylococci and perhaps
other microorganisms in general.
Copyright © 1996 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
HSP60 gene sequences as universal targets for microbial species identification: studies with coagulase-negative staphylococci
Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Hospital Health Sciences Centre, Canada.
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