Differentiation of seventeen genospecies of Acinetobacter by multiplex polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis.

The 17 described genomic species (DNA groups) of the genus Acinetobacter, including the type strains of the seven named species, were studied by using a multiplex PCR. The multiplex PCR assay combined two primer sets (rA1 and rA2 for recA gene target; rib1 and rib2 for 16S rDNA sequence) in a single reaction. Restriction analysis with two enzymes (Mbol and Hinfl) of the enzymatically amplified products allowed identification of all genospecies. This technique proved to be a rapid and reliable method for the identification of the Acinetobacter genomic species including the closely related DNA groups (1, 2, 3, 13). The results of this study suggest that the proposed method can be used for the identification of Acinetobacter spp. and as such may help to elucidate the ecology and clinical significance of the different species of this genus.