GENERATION OF SPECIFIC PROBES FOR TARGET NUCLEOTIDE SEQUENCES

A method for generating DNA probes specific for an organism and capable of distinguishing in a non-empirical manner between species. The method comprises amplifying, using a pair of oligonucleotide primers, a variable region of the genome of a number of phylogenetically related organisms to, or of a number of organisms suspected of being present in a given sample containing, said organism to be identified and having said variable region in its genome, at least one of said primers corresponding to a DNA sequence known or suspected of being conserved in said organisms, determining the sequence of the amplified region, selecting said sequence or a portion thereof to generate said probe specific for said organism to be identified by comparison with said other amplified regions and defining the hybridization conditions required to obtain a specific signal based on the precise nucleotide sequence of the selected probe. Specific probes are disclosed for a variety of species including Aeromonas hydrophila, Aeromonas salmonicida, Clostridium difficile, Mycobacterium bovis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Salmonella typhimurium.