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The local public health agency has received reports of an outbreak of salmonella

ID: 166282 • Letter: T

Question

The local public health agency has received reports of an outbreak of salmonella gastroenteritis among attendees at a city- sponsored chili cook- off. What techniques from recombinant DNA technology would the agency likely use to investigate this outbreak? Describe the expected results from these techniques. The local public health agency has received reports of an outbreak of salmonella gastroenteritis among attendees at a city- sponsored chili cook- off. What techniques from recombinant DNA technology would the agency likely use to investigate this outbreak? Describe the expected results from these techniques.

Explanation / Answer

Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was used to investigate an outbreak of gastroenteritis caused by Salmonella enteritidis.

Molecular typing can be done by analyzing DNA band patterns of isolates of S. enteritidis after digestion of chromosomal DNA with infrequently-cutting restriction endonucleases XbaI, AvrII, and SpeI and separation of DNA fragments using PFGE.

Twenty-nine outbreak isolates of S. enteritidis had identical or highly similar PFGE patterns, whereas different PFGE patterns were observed among three epidemiologically unrelated isolates obtained during the same period.