Restriction Endonuclease Analysis Typing of Clostridium difficile Isolates

Restriction endonuclease analysis (REA) typing using HindIII enzyme is a highly discriminatory, reproducible, and consistent method of genetic typing of Clostridium difficile (CD) isolates. REA typing analyzes CD whole cellular DNA on two levels of discrimination: REA Group designation and REA Type designation, which distinguishes specific subtypes within the REA Group. This methodology has enabled the tracking of epidemiologically significant CD strains over time and in some cases has allowed documentation of the evolution of previously rare REA Group strains that have subsequently become epidemic. The chapter details the methods used to isolate and purify CD colonies from stool samples, to obtain intact, full-length whole cellular DNA from CD isolates by use of guanidine-EDTA solution, and to analyze the HindIII-digested DNA after electrophoretic separation on agarose gels.

Sequencing of chloroplast genome using whole cellular DNA and solexa sequencing technology

Sequencing of the chloroplast (cp) genome using traditional sequencing methods has been difficult because of its size (>120 kb) and the complicated procedures required to prepare templates. To explore the feasibility of sequencing the cp genome using DNA extracted from whole cells and Solexa sequencing technology, we sequenced whole cellular DNA isolated from leaves of three Brassicarapa accessions with one lane per accession. In total, 246, 362, and 361 Mb sequence data were generated for the three accessions Chiifu-401-42, Z16, and FT, respectively. Micro-reads were assembled by reference-guided assembly using the cpDNA sequences of B. rapa, Arabidopsis thaliana, and Nicotiana tabacum. We achieved coverage of more than 99.96% of the cp genome in the three tested accessions using the B. rapa sequence as the reference. When A. thaliana or N. tabacum sequences were used as references, 99.7-99.8 or 95.5-99.7% of the B. rapa cp genome was covered, respectively. These results demonstrated that sequencing of whole cellular DNA isolated from young leaves using the Illumina Genome Analyzer is an efficient method for high-throughput sequencing of cp genome.