Performance of five molecular methods for monitoring Arcobacter spp

BMC Microbiology

Table 1 Performance of five molecular methods used for the identification of Arcobacter species in relation to a reference method ^a

		Houf *et al*. [[14]			Kabeya *et al*. [[15]			Figueras *et al*. [[18]			Pentimalli *et al*. [[16]			Douidah *et al.*[[9]
		Houf *et al*. [[14]			Kabeya *et al*. [[15]			Figueras *et al*. [[18]			Pentimalli *et al*. [[16]			De Smet *et al*. [[17]^b
Targeted species	Strains^c	A	B	C	A	B	C	A	B	C	A	B	C	A	B	C
*A. butzleri*	21	16S	100	0	23S	4.8	6	16S	100	3	16S	100	4	23S	100	4
*A. cryaerophilus*	19	23S	100	11	23S	100^d	8	16S	63.2	0	gyrA	100	1	gyrA	100	1
*A. skirrowii*	5	16S	100	4	23S	100	3	16S	100	0	gyrA	60	2	23S	100	0
*A. cibarius*	8							16S	100	0	gyrA	0^e	0	23S	100	0
*A. thereius*	5													23S	100	0
*A. trophiarum*	3													hsp60	100	0
*A. nitrofigilis*	5							16S	100	0
*A. halophilus*	1							16S	100	0

(A) targeted genes, (B) percentage of correctly identified strains of the targeted species, and (C) number of non-targeted species misidentified as targeted ones.
^aAll strains were identified using the RFLP method of Figueras et al. [19] specifically designed to recognize all species.
^bThe method designed by De Smet et al.[17] only detects or identifies A. trophiarum, and was intended to complement the m-PCR of Douidah et al.[9]. Therefore, they are grouped together as a single method.
^cThe strains of the nine Arcobacter species not listed in this table (n=28) belong to new species that were not targeted by the compared methods.
^dThe method was designed to differentiate subgroups 1A and 1B of this species, but not all strains of these subgroups were well recognized (Table 2).
^eDespite the eight strains of A. cibarius being correctly assigned to this species, none of them was considered to be correctly identified. This is because they were all confused with A. butzleri, and three of them with A. skirrowii, when using primers that targeted those species (Table 2).

ISSN: 1471-2180