Genotypic analysis of enterococci isolated from fecal-polluted water from different sources by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) for application to microbial source tracking

Abstract

PFGE has potential applications in the source tracking of fecal pollution in aquatic environments. We tried to distinguish the genotypes of Enterococcus faecium collected from fecal-contaminated water using PFGE. Well identified 115 strains of E. faecium were classified into 25 PFGE patterns, and characteristics distinctive to each genotype were recognized. Analysis of the characteristics of genotypes using PFGE can be used to track source of fecal pollution.