The mosaic nature of intergenic 16S-23S rRNA spacer regions suggests rRNA operon copy number variation in Clostridium difficile strains.

ABSTRACT: Clostridium difficile is a major spore-forming environmental pathogen that causes serious health problems in patients undergoing antibiotic therapy. Consequently, reliable and sensitive methods for typing individual strains are required for epidemiological and environmental studies. Ribotyping is generally considered the best method, but it fails to account for sequence diversity which might exist in intergenic 16S-23S rRNA spacer regions (ISRs) within and among strains of this organism. Therefore, this study was undertaken to compare the sequence of each individual ISR in five strains of C. difficile to explore the extent of this diversity and see whether such information might provide the basis for more sensitive and discriminatory strain typing methods. After targeted PCR amplification,

SUBMITTER: Sadeghifard N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1636144 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature