Abstract

Background: Among different Salmonella serotypes, Salmonella infantis is one of the most important causes of illnesses in humans and animals and its prevalence is increasing. House, keeping genes are required for cell performance and are typically expressed in all types of the cells. These genes can be considered as screening targets for microbial detection. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate house-keeping genes as targets for screening and molecular detection of Salmonella infantis. Methods: Forty Salmonella infantis strains, recovered from the patients with salmonellosis hospitalized in different hospitals of Tehran, Iran, were included in this study. Identification of the strains were done using standard biochemical and bacteriological methods; polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used by specially designed primers of housekeeping genes (aroC, purE , thrA) for screening of Salmonella infantis. Some Shigella and Escherichia coli isolates were used as control strains. Findings: The housekeeping genes were amplified successfully with the final size of 826 bp for aroC, 510 bp for purE and 852 bp for thrA genes in all Salmonella infantis. Any positive reaction seen when the test was done on Shigella and Escherichia coli strains, indicated that the method has good specificity. Conclusion: According to the findings achieved in the study, it might be concluded that selected housekeeping genes used in current study are suitable target genes for screening and molecular detection of Salmonella infantis. © 2014, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences(IUMS). All rights reserved.