Abstract
Rapid and easy-to-use molecular subtyping methods are being explored and used for the surveillance of bacterial diseases, including multiple-loci variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) analysis (MLVA). In this study, we assessed different VNTR combinations for the subtyping of Vibrio cholerae serogroups O1 and O139 with strain panels selected from a long-term nationwide cholera survey. By only using three highly variable loci (VC0147, VCA0171, and VCA0283), we acquired a high discriminatory power, which equals that found after using a combination of all nine loci and that of a pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analysis. Evaluation using the outbreak strains showed a good clustering of the three-loci MLVA (VC0147, VCA0171, and VCA0283). In addition, a six-loci MLVA (VC0147, VC0437, VC1457, VC1650, VCA0171, and VCA0283) protocol allowed for the clustering of O1/O139 V. cholerae strains, which have different serogroups/biotypes and toxigenic/nontoxigenic characteristics. Here, we propose that the three-loci MLVA can be utilized as a molecular subtyping protocol in cholera epidemiological investigations, and the six-loci MLVA can be used in phylogenetic and population structure analyses of V. cholerae O1/O139.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
