Use of Polymerase Chain Reaction Fingerprinting to Compare Clinical Isolates of Bacteroides fragilis and Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron from Germany and the United States

Accurate identification of Bacteroides species is often problematic. Therefore, we used a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) fingerprinting technique with either a single nonspecific primer derived from tDNA intergenic spacer or a single primer that anneals to mini- and microsatellite DNA sequences to compare 34 clinical isolates of B. fragilis and 21 clinical isolates of B. thetaiotaomicron from Southern California with 32 clinical isolates of B. fragilis and 10 isolates of B. thetaiotaomicron from Germany. All German B. fragilis isolates (32 of 32) formed one PCR fingerprint group that matched the PCR profile of the B. fragilis reference strain ATCC (American Type Culture Collection) 25285, representative of DNA homology group I. In contrast, the isolates from Southern California formed two PCR fingerprint groups. Although most of these strains (29 of 34) also matched B. fragilis ATCC 25285, some strains (4 of 34) matched the DNA homology group II reference strain VPI (Virginia Polytechnic Institute) 2393. One of the 34 strains showed a unique profile. German B. thetaiotaomicron strains (10 of 10) formed one PCR fingerprint group, matching the reference strain B. thetaiotaomicron ATCC 29742, whereas the B. thetaiotaomicron isolates from Southern California showed heterogenous profiles.