The oral cavity as a natural reservoir for Streptococcus sinensis

Abstract

Using Streptococcus sinensis 16S rRNA-specific and groEL gene-specific primers, a 128-bp fragment of the 16S rRNA gene and a 433-bp fragment of the groEL gene were amplified from bacterial DNA recovered from 22 of 100 saliva samples from healthy volunteers. There was no nucleotide difference between the 88-bp 16S rRNA gene fragments from the 22 saliva samples and that of S. sinensis strain HKU4 T, but there were zero to eight nucleotide differences between the 311-bp groEL gene fragments from the 22 samples and that of S. sinensis strain HKU4 T. The oral cavity is the natural reservoir of S. sinensis. © 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.