COMPARISON OF RIBOTYPING AND RANDOMLY AMPLIFIED POLYMORPHIC DNA PCR FOR CHARACTERIZATION OF VIBRIO-VULNIFICUS

A total of 85 isolates of Vibrio vulnificus mere characterized by ribo typing with a probe complementary to 16 and 23S rRNA of Escherichia co li and by randomly amplified polymorphic DNA-PCR (RAPD-PCR) with a 10- mer oligonacleotide primer. The RAPD-PCR results were scanned, and the images were analyzed with a computer program. Ribotype membranes were evaluated visually. Both the ribotyping and the RAPD-PCR results show ed that the collection of strains was genetically very heterogeneuus. Ribotyping enabled us to differentiate U.S. and Danish strains and V. vulnificus biotypes 1 and 2, while the RAPD-PCR technique was not able to correlate isolates with sources or to differentiate the two biotyp es, suggesting that ribotyping is useful for typing V. vulnificus stra ins whereas RAPD-PCR profiles map subdivide ribotypes. Two Danish clin ical biotype 2 strains isolated from fishermen wine contracted the inf ection cleaning eels belonged to the same ribotype as three eel strain s (biotype 2), providing further evidence that V. vulnificus biotype 2 is an opportunistic pathogen for humans. One isolate (biotype 2) from Danish coastal waters also showed the same ribotype as the eel strain s. This is, to our knowledge, the first time the isolation of V. vulni ficus biotype 2 from coastal waters has been described.