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Updated: Aug 30, 2026

Genotyping of Staphylococcus aureus by Ribosomal Spacer PCR (RS-PCR)
Published on: November 4, 2016
Analysis of clinical isolates of Propionibacterium acnes by optimised RAPD
Alexandra L Perry1, Tony Worthington, Anthony C Hilton
1Microbiology Research, Life and Health Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK.
Abstract:
Random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD) was evaluated as a genotypic method for typing clinical strains of Propionibacterium acnes. RAPD can suffer from problems of reproducibility if parameters are not standardised. In this study the reaction conditions were optimised by adjusting template DNA concentration and buffer constituents. All isolates were typeable using the optimised RAPD protocol which was found to be highly discriminatory (Simpson's diversity index, 0.98) and reproducible. Typing of P. acnes by optimised RAPD is an invaluable tool for the epidemiological investigation of P. acnes for which no other widely accepted method currently exists.
