SPECIES-SPECIFIC DETECTION OF CAUSATIVE AGENT OF ANTHRAX

Nucleotide sequences were analyzed, and dendrograms were obtained for the members of Bacillus cereus sensu lato group (B. anthracis, B. sereus, and B. thuringiensis) based on rpoB, plcr, and ssp genes of chromosomal DNA, which may be the molecular genetic markers for their typing. In testing the primer set, the target ssp gene fragment characterized by hexanucleotide insertion only isolates B. anthracis, and has allowed conventional polymerase chain reaction to reliably differentiate B. anthracis bacteria from B. sereus and B. thuringiensis species. It was shown that phylogenetic tree can be applied as an indicator of reliability and accuracy of the taxonomical classification of species and subspecies of pathogens. Unlike all the analyzed B. anthracis strains that form a monophyletic cluster on a dendrogram, there are B. sereus strains that are phylogenetically more related to B. thuringiensis strains, as well as B. thuringiensis strains that are more related phylogenetically to B. sereus strains, suggesting that they should be reclassified.