Ralstonia paucula (Formerly CDC group IV c-2): unsuccessful strain differentiation with PCR-based methods, study of the 16S-23S spacer of the rRNA operon, and comparison with other Ralstonia species (R. eutropha, R. pickettii, R. gilardii, and R. solanacearum)

J Clin Microbiol. 2001 Jan;39(1):381-4. doi: 10.1128/JCM.39.1.381-384.2001.

Abstract

Ralstonia paucula (formerly CDC group IV c-2) can cause serious human infections. Confronted in 1995 with five cases of nosocomial bacteremia, we found that pulsed-field gel electrophoresis could not distinguish between the isolates and that randomly amplified polymorphic DNA analysis was poorly discriminatory. In this study, we used PCR-ribotyping and PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of the spacer 16S-23S ribosomal DNA (rDNA); both methods were unable to differentiate R. paucula isolates. Eighteen strains belonging to other Ralstonia species (one R. eutropha strain, six R. pickettii strains, three R. solanacearum strains, and eight R. gilardii strains) were also tested by PCR-ribotyping, which failed to distinguish between the four species. The 16S-23S rDNA intergenic spacer of R. paucula contains the tRNA(Ile) and tRNA(Ala) genes, which are identical to genes described for R. pickettii and R. solanacearum.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study

MeSH terms

  • Bacterial Typing Techniques
  • Base Sequence
  • Betaproteobacteria / classification*
  • Betaproteobacteria / genetics
  • Cupriavidus necator / classification*
  • Cupriavidus necator / genetics
  • DNA, Ribosomal Spacer / genetics*
  • Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections / microbiology
  • Humans
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Nucleic Acid Conformation
  • Polymerase Chain Reaction / methods*
  • Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / genetics
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 23S / genetics
  • Ribotyping
  • rRNA Operon / genetics*

Substances

  • DNA, Ribosomal Spacer
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 23S

Associated data

  • GENBANK/AF237657