Background and objective: Salmonella is a gastrointestinal pathogen with a widespread distribution throughout the word. This pathogen is considered as one of the most common and current foodborne infection in the world. The increasing incidence of infections caused by Salmonella enterica serovar infantis is concerning. Variable number tandem repeats are patterns of the repeated DNA which may have different repeats or sizes among different strains of a particular genus. The purpose of this study to assess the diversity of Salmonella enteric serovar infantis strains isolated from the clinical samples in Tehran.
Materials and methods: A total number of 20 strains of Salmonella enterica serovar infantis were analyzed by PCR with specific primers designed for SENTR3 and SE4 loci. Diversity of each loci were assessed after gel electrophoresis.
Results: The results demonstrated that SENTR3 locus showed the highest number of alleles, while the locus of SE4 showed the least number of alleles.
CONCLUSION: Since these loci showed relatively high diversity, these loci can be used as useful markers for genotyping of Salmonella enterica serovar infantis isolates in epidemiological surveys.