Abstract

In order to rapidly identify and differentiate Salmonella typhimurium from the intestinal gram-negative bacteria, randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) fingerprinting of Salmonella typhimurium was carried out using random primers designated OPA-13 (5'-CAGCACCCAC-3'), OPB-10 (5'-CGT-CTGGGAC-3'), OPB-18 (5'-CCACAGCAGT-3'), and OPJ-10 (5'-AAGCCCGAGG-3'), and its patterns compared with 6 representive intestinal, gram-negative bacterial strains, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, V. vulnificus, Enterobacter cloacae, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Proteus sp., which are often found in foods. S. typhimurium had unique and distinct fingerprinting patterns. RAPD fingerprinting is thus concluded to be a rapid and sensitive method for the identification of S. typh-imurium compared to conventional culturing procedures or immunoassays.

• Keywords: Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD); fingerprinting; Salmonella typhimurium