Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism Fingerprinting as a Tool to Study the Genetic Diversity of Staphylococcus aureus Isolated from Food Sources

Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) is a recently developed PCR-based high resolution fingerprinting method that is able to generate complex banding patterns which can be used to delineate intraspecific genetic relationships among bacteria. In this study, we have modified and evaluated a PCR-based technique, amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis, for use in fingerprinting strains of Staphylococcus aureus. Single-enzyme amplified fragment length polymorphism (SE-AFLP) analysis was used to perform strain identification of Staphylococus aureus. By careful selection of AFLP primers, it was possible to obtain reproducible and sensitive identification to strain level. AFLP fingerprinting of 5 reference strains of Staphylococcus aureus and 65 strains of Staphylococcus aureus that were isolated from food sources of different area and diverse genomic types of Staphylococcus aureus were recognized. As a result of this study, we found that the AFLP patterns of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from Seoul, Taejeon and Gwang-Ju indicated the close relation with genetic similarity. The main purpose of this study was to find an alternative and reliable fingerprinting method to study the overall genetic diversity, using Staphylococcus aureus species as an example, and observed if the method can be successfully applied to all staphylococcal species.