Typing of Clostridium perfringens by multiple-locus variable number of tandem repeats analysis

Clostridium perfringens is a well-characterized bacterial species which can be both commensal and pathogenic in humans and many animals. Genetic typing of the bacterium is often used for molecular epidemiological purposes, and can be useful for observing population structures as well. Analysis of the variable number of tandem repeats (VNTRs) within the genome, called multiple-locus VNTR analysis (MLVA) provides genetic information useful for molecular typing. A MLVA typing method has been developed recently by Sawires and Songer [Sawires, Y.S., Songer, J.G., 2005. Multiple-locus variable-number tandem repeat analysis for strain typing of Clostridium perfringens. Anaerobe 11, 262–272] for C. perfringens. A novel MLVA protocol is described here, with the aim of investigating the discriminatory potential of the method, and to obtain preliminary data on the population structure of C. perfringens from a wide variety of C. perfringens sources. This protocol uses new loci in noncoding regions of the chromosome, and also makes use of capillary electrophoresis for more precise results and for high-throughput typing. DNA sequencing of amplicons was performed to ensure inclusion of conserved tandem repeats within each locus. Fifty-four epidemiologically unrelated isolates from a local collection obtained from 11 different animal species were typed at 6 loci. Thirty-five unique MLVA types were obtained, resulting in a Simpson's index of diversity of 0.975. Epidemiologically related isolates (n = 27) previously typed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) were also examined with MLVA and the congruency of the two methods was found to be very high. All 81 isolates were successfully typed with MLVA, and polymerase chain reactions (PCR) were automated using robotics and 96-well plates, with PCR product sizes determined using capillary electrophoresis. Reproducibility was also shown to be very high.