Typing of Brucella melitensis by VNTR-PCR

Discussion From the results obtained we can conclude that the primer pairs selected (Bruce06, Bruce42and Bruce55) are well suited for the characterization of variable loci in B. melitensis and for themolecular typing of isolates. This method might be useful for identification of an outbreaksource.The 3-loci-VNTR-PCR is easy to perform, rapid and cheap, showing a good reproducibility. Itcan be conducted in each molecular biology laboratory and the results can be compared withinlaboratories. Despite the low number of strains tested a relationship between geographicalorigin and GG could be demonstrated. Further studies have to be initiated to compile acomprehensive database for tracing back strains used in a bioterrorist attack.