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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, July 2002, p. 3655-3660, Vol. 68, No. 7
0099-2240/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.68.7.3655-3660.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Differentiation of Paenibacillus larvae subsp. larvae, the Cause of American Foulbrood of Honeybees, by Using PCR and Restriction Fragment Analysis of Genes Encoding 16S rRNA
Adriana M. Alippi,1* Ana Claudia López,2 and O. Mario Aguilar2
Centro de Investigaciones de Fitopatología, Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestales,1
Instituto de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, 1900 La Plata, Argentina2
Received 13 December 2001/
Accepted 17 April 2002

ABSTRACT
A rapid procedure for the identification of
Paenibacillus larvae subsp.
larvae, the causal agent of American foulbrood (AFB)
disease of honeybees (
Apis mellifera L.), based on PCR and restriction
fragment analysis of the 16S rRNA genes (rDNA) is described.
Eighty-six bacterial strains belonging to 39 species of the
genera
Paenibacillus,
Bacillus,
Brevibacillus, and
Virgibacillus were characterized. Amplified rDNA was digested with seven restriction
endonucleases. The combined data from restriction analysis enabled
us to distinguish 35 profiles. Cluster analysis revealed that
P. larvae subsp.
larvae and
Paenibacillus larvae subsp.
pulvifaciens formed a group with about 90% similarity; however, the
P. larvae subsp.
larvae restriction fragment length polymorphism pattern
produced by endonuclease
HaeIII was found to be unique and distinguishable
among other closely related bacteria. This pattern was associated
with DNA extracted directly from honeybee brood samples showing
positive AFB clinical signs that yielded the restriction profile
characteristic of
P. larvae subsp.
larvae, while no amplification
product was obtained from healthy larvae. The method described
here is particularly useful because of the short time required
to carry it out and because it allows the differentiation of
P. larvae subsp.
larvae-infected larvae from all other species
found in apiarian sources.

INTRODUCTION
American foulbrood (AFB) disease caused by the spore-forming
bacterium
Paenibacillus larvae subsp.
larvae (
15) (formerly
Bacillus larvae) is a highly contagious, cosmopolitan disease
of bacterial origin affecting the larval and pupal stages of
honeybees (
Apis mellifera L.). Infected individuals turn brown
and then black, and the resultant mass becomes a hard scale
of material deposited on the side of the cell. AFB is one of
the few bee diseases capable of killing a colony, and it presents
unique problems for prevention and control because the spores
can remain viable for long periods and survive under adverse
environmental conditions (
17,
17a,
17b). The disease spreads
when spores are carried on drifting bees, hive parts, beekeepers'
clothes, and contaminated pollen or honey.
Govan et al. (13) and Dobbelaere et al. (8) reported the use of PCR for rapid identification of P. larvae subsp. larvae by using primers derived from gene regions encoding 16S rRNA (rDNA). Specific primers designed by Govan et al. (13) produced a single amplicon, whereas those designed by Dobbelaere et al. (8) produced four amplicons. The results of their analysis of a limited number of species from apiarian sources did not allow them to differentiate P. larvae subsp. larvae from Paenibacillus larvae subsp. pulvifaciens, the cause of powdery scale disease (15, 16), because both subspecies showed the same pattern. Dobbelaere et al. (8) concluded that the high degree of similarity between 16S rRNA genes of the two subspecies, about 99.44%, does not permit the design of specific primers for either of the two subspecies.
In addition, several Paenibacillus species and species of the genera Bacillus, Brevibacillus, and Virgibacillus were consistently reported as being isolated from apiarian sources (2, 9, 10, 11, 12). The complex microbial community of sporeformers includes Paenibacillus alvei, Brevibacillus laterosporus, and Paenibacillus apiarius, which are considered secondary bacterial invaders of larvae infected with European foulbrood (EFB), and also P. larvae subsp. pulvifaciens and Bacillus coagulans, which cause diseases of minor economical impact (1, 5, 16, 19, 20). Nevertheless, these bacteria can easily contaminate and overgrow plates of the slow-growing fastidious P. larvae subsp. larvae, making the correct diagnosis of AFB difficult unless selective media are used (1, 2).
The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility of using restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis (RFLP) of PCR-amplified 16S rDNAs for the differentiation of P. larvae subsp. larvae from other Paenibacillus organisms and from other spore-forming bacteria from apiarian sources and to assess its applicability to the direct and rapid diagnosis of AFB.

Strains and media.
Eighty-six bacterial strains from diverse origins used in this
study are listed in Table
1. For the isolation of
P. larvae subsp.
larvae strains from brood combs affected by AFB and from
honey samples, previously described techniques were employed
(
2,
3).
Brevibacillus laterosporus BLA 168 was isolated from
honeybee larvae exhibiting symptoms of EFB, and Argentinian
strains of
P. alvei,
Bacillus cereus,
Bacillus mycoides, and
Bacillus megaterium were recovered from honey as reported before
(
2).
View this table:
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TABLE 1. Restriction patterns of PCR-amplified 16S rDNA genes among Paenibacillus, Bacillus, Brevibacillus, and Virgibacillus species and origins of the strains used in this study
|
P. larvae subsp.
larvae,
P. larvae subsp.
pulvifaciens,
P. amylolyticus,
P. lautus,
P. illinoisensis, and
P. chibensis strains were grown
on MYPGP agar (
6) at 37°C for 48 h; the other
Paenibacillus species were grown on MYPGP agar at 30°C for 24 to 48 h,
except
P. macquariensis, which was grown at 22°C, and
P. dendritiformis, which was grown on Luria-Bertani agar at 37°C.
Bacillus,
Brevibacillus, and
Virgibacillus species were grown
on tryptic soy agar at 30°C for 24 h, with the exception
of
B. coagulans, which was incubated at 37°C. Purity was
confirmed by colony morphology and microscopic examination of
bacterial smears.

DNA preparation.
Bacterial cells for DNA extraction were grown at the appropriate
temperature and medium under aerobic conditions for 24 to 48
h according to the species used. For bacterial DNA preparation,
a rapid procedure using whole cells from plates was employed
(
3). After centrifugation to remove bacterial debris and resin,
the supernatant was used as the DNA template.

PCR amplification and RFLP analysis of 16S rDNA.
Primers U1 and U2 described by Ash et al. were used for PCR
amplification of 16S rRNA genes from
Bacillus,
Paenibacillus,
Brevibacillus, and
Virgibacillus species (
4). These primers
were derived from conserved regions and capable of amplifying
about 1.1 kb of 16S rDNA from
Bacillus species and closely related
genera. The PCR mixtures, which contained 1.5 µl of deoxynucleotide
mixture (2 mM each), 1.25 µl of a mixture of both primers
(10 mM each), 1.5 µl of Promega (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
reaction buffer, 1.0 µl of MgCl
2 (25 µM), 5 µl
of supernatant DNA, and sterile deionized water to bring the
final volume to 25 µl, were pretreated at 94°C before
1 U of
Taq polymerase (Promega Corp.) was added. PCR amplification
was carried out according to the protocol of Ash et al. (
4).
PCR products were examined by using agarose (0.8%) gel electrophoresis
and visualized by using ethidium bromide and UV light.
After amplification, subsamples of about 5 µl were incubated overnight with endonucleases RsaI, HaeIII, MspI, AluI, HinfI, TaqI, and CfoI (Promega) according to the manufacturer's specifications. RFLP analysis was performed by electrophoresis in a 2% agarose gel at 80 V for 2.30 h.
We found that species belonging to the genera Paenibacillus, Bacillus, Brevibacillus, and Virgibacillus consistently yielded a PCR amplification product of about 1,100 bp. In our analysis of the 16S rRNA gene, we assayed the variation at seven restriction sites that were thought to provide an RFLP pattern diagnostic of P. larvae subsp. larvae. It was found that analysis of 86 strains from different sources and classified as belonging to 39 species allowed us to place them in 35 composite profiles following digestion with RsaI, HaeIII, MspI, AluI, HinfI, TaqI, and CfoI by using the "combined gels" option of Gelcompare. The program FreeTree (14) was used for the construction of a phylogenetic tree (Fig. 1B) and for jackknife analysis by using a binary matrix based on RFLP characters (Nei-Li distances; neighbor-joining tree-construction method; 1,000 resampled data sets).
The result of the analysis shown in Fig.
1 revealed that
P. larvae subsp.
larvae and
P. larvae subsp.
pulvifaciens formed
a group with about 90% similarity. However, the
HaeIII restriction
pattern of
P. larvae subsp.
larvae was found to be unique and
allowed us to distinguish it from other closely related bacteria.
Indeed, none of eight
P. larvae subsp.
pulvifaciens strains
we examined showed the two
HaeIII fragments of about 300 and
470 bp, respectively, which were characteristic of
P. larvae subsp.
larvae strains (
n = 32) (Fig.
2A). Further evidence that
supported subspecies differentiation was obtained, extending
this analysis to 365 isolates of
P. larvae subsp.
larvae from
different origins that showed the same
HaeIII restriction pattern
(data not shown); in addition,
HinfI restriction analysis, unlike
with
P. larvae subsp.
pulvifaciens, revealed no recognition
site in
P. larvae subsp.
larvae strains (Table
1). On the other
hand, profiles obtained with
AluI,
CfoI,
RsaI, and
TaqI were
found to be identical in both subspecies. In addition, the
MspI
restriction patterns shown by
P. larvae subsp.
larvae and subsp.
pulvifaciens were identical, whereas they differed from that
of other species we examined (Fig.
2B). This relatedness between
P. larvae subsp.
larvae and
P. larvae subsp.
pulvifaciens is
in agreement with previous evidence obtained by using a polyphasic
approach (
15). Differences between pairs of restriction patterns,
as found here, could be simply explained in terms of gain or
loss of only one or two restriction sites, which indicates indeed
that these two subspecies are genetically closely related.
In a few cases, pairs or groups (e.g.,
B. cereus and
B. thuringiensis;
B. subtilis,
B. coagulans, and
B. pumilus; and
P. borealis and
P. macquariensis) were not differentiated by the set of endonucleases
that we used (Table
1; Fig.
1A). The use of other endonucleases
or DNA sequencing may provide a basis for their differentiation.
We conclude that the 16S rRNA gene is polymorphic among the aerobic spore-forming bacterial species predominant in apiarian sources. However, intraspecies polymorphism was not detected among the 32 P. larvae subsp. larvae strains obtained from diverse geographic regions. More interesting, we found that restriction pattern analysis revealed a distinct genotype for P. larvae subsp. larvae which may be useful for its identification, since the use of the endonucleases MspI, HinfI, and HaeIII would result in the recognition of P. larvae subsp. larvae among apiarian bacteria.

Direct detection in honeybee larva samples.
Current procedures to detect AFB disease are based on direct
field inspection of the hives and on the use of selective bacterial
growth media combined with PCR methods (
1,
2,
3,
13). Overall,
they possess some limitations, since occasionally clinical symptoms
are ambiguous and several days are required to reach a conclusive
diagnosis. Therefore, in order to assess whether the 16S rDNA-RFLP
analysis might be useful to reveal and confirm
P. larvae subsp.
larvae infection in hives, we carried out the following assays.
Larvae exhibiting clinical symptoms of AFB were removed from
the cells by using a toothpick and thoroughly mixed with 1 ml
of sterile distilled water (two larval remains or scales per
tube). One hundred microliters of this mixture was diluted in
900 µl of sterile distilled water, vortex mixed, and centrifuged
at 3,200
x g for 5 min. Fifty microliters of the supernatant
was heated at 95°C for 15 min (
8) and centrifuged at 3,200
x g for 5 min. Subsamples of the supernatant were used as DNA
templates in the PCR amplification as described above. Similar
treatment was applied to healthy larvae 2, 5, and 19 days old
and also to larval remains infected with chalkbrood caused by
the fungus
Ascosphaera apis (
18) and EFB caused by the bacterium
Melissococcus plutonius (formerly
Melissococcus pluton) (
5,
7), which were assessed as controls. AFB, EFB, and chalkbrood
were confirmed by using standard microscopic and microbiological
techniques (
1,
5,
7,
18,
19). The results in Fig.
2C reveal
that DNA extracted from larva samples associated with AFB symptoms
consistently amplified the 1,100-bp fragment which, after incubation
with endonuclease
HaeIII, gave an RFLP pattern identical to
that found to be characteristic of
P. larvae subsp.
larvae.
No amplification was detected with extracts from healthy larvae,
EFB-diseased larvae, or chalkbrood mummies (dried dead larvae
affected by chalkbrood disease). Furthermore, by using larval
samples carrying mixed spore-forming bacterial populations that
had been described by Alippi (
1), a unique
HaeIII restriction
pattern identical to that of
P. larvae subsp.
larvae was observed
(data not shown). We assume that the high level of
P. larvae subsp.
larvae spores present in larva samples may indicate that
DNA from
P. larvae subsp.
larvae outcompetes those from other
bacteria as a template in the PCR.
Finally, DNA fingerprint analysis using the primers BOX, REP, and ERIC revealed four different genotypes within the P. larvae subsp. larvae collection we examined, which were demonstrated to be genetically diverse even though the 16S rDNA-RFLP pattern was identical (3; Alippi et al., unpublished data).
Our study provides a method that appears to be helpful in distinguishing P. larvae subsp. larvae from other Paenibacillus organisms, particularly those that are closely related, such as P. larvae subsp. pulvifaciens, and also from the spore-forming species which are commonly found in samples from apiarian environments. Since this procedure allows the identification of P. larvae subsp. larvae obtained either from culture or from larvae, we believe it can be applied to the reliable and rapid diagnosis of AFB (in about 4 h), in contrast to classical microbiological methods, which require at least 2 days.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by a grant from ANPCyT, Argentina
(BID 1201/OC-AR PICT 08-03857), and from the IFS, Sweden (A.M.A.).
A.M.A. and O.M.A. are Career Investigators of CIC and CONICET,
respectively, and A.C.L. is a recipient of a scholarship from
ANPCyT, Argentina.
We thank the curator of the NRRL Collection, N. Nakamura, for supplying bacterial cultures, those (listed in Table 1) who provided AFB samples or bacterial isolates, and F. J. Reynaldi for collecting larval samples.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Centro de Investigaciones de Fitopatología, Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestales, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, calles 60 y 118, c.c. 31, 1900 La Plata, Argentina. Phone: 54 221 4236758, ext. 423. Fax: 54 221 425-2346. E-mail:
alippi{at}biol.unlp.edu.ar.


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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, July 2002, p. 3655-3660, Vol. 68, No. 7
0099-2240/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.68.7.3655-3660.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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