Gyun Cheol Park1, Sook Jin Jang1,2, Min Jung Lee2, Joong-Ki Kook3, Min Jung Kim3, Young Sook Kim4, Nam Woong Yang5, Hye Soo Lee6,7, Seong Ho Kang1, Geon Park1, Dae Soo Moon1
1Department of Laboratory Medicine, 2Research Center for Resistant Cells, Chosun University College of Medicine, 3Department of Oral Biochemistry, College of Dentistry, Chosun University, 4Departments of Radiology, Chosun University College of Medicine, 5Department of Microbiology, College of Medicine, Chosun University, Gwangju, 6Department of Laboratory Medicine, Chonbuk National University Medical School, 7Chonbuk National University Hospital Branch of National Culture Collection of Pathogens, Jeonju, Korea
Background: Recently, genotypic identification of anaerobes is emerging as an alternative to the phenotypic method. In this study, we evaluated the performance of Vitek 2, API 20A and 16s rRNA gene sequencing for the identification of anaerobic bacteria.
Methods: A total of 35 anaerobe reference strains were identified using Vitek 2, API 20A and 16s rRNA gene sequencing. We evaluated the performance of three methods on the basis of the accurate identification rates.
Results: The Vitek 2, API 20A and 16s rRNA gene sequencing identified 54.3, 15.4, and 94.3% of test strains correctly at the species level and identified 77.1, 42.3, and 100% at the genus level, respectively. Results of the McNemar’s test showed that there was a significant difference between each of the three identification methods in species level identification (P value<0.05).
Conclusion: 16s rRNA gene sequencing showed better performance than Vitek 2 or API 20A for anaerobic bacteria. Considering its excellent performance, 16s rRNA gene sequencing may be useful for accurate identification of anaerobic bacteria that cannot be correctly identified by phenotypic methods. (Ann Clin Microbiol 2015;18:20-26)