| Summary: | In recent years, <i>Salmonella</i> Infantis has become a predominant serovariant in clinical and poultry isolates, thereby imposing a substantial economic burden on both public health and the livestock industry. With the aim of coping with the steep increase in serovar Infantis prevalence, a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based rapid and accurate diagnostic assay was developed in this study through pangenome profiling of 60 <i>Salmonella</i> serovars. A gene marker, SIN_02055, was identified, which is present in the <i>S</i>. Infantis genome but not in the pangenome of the other serovars. Primers specific to SIN_02055 were used to accurately detect serovar Infantis, and to successfully differentiate Infantis from the other 59 serovars in real-time PCR with a R<sup>2</sup> of 0.999 and an efficiency of 95.76%. The developed method was applied to 54 <i>Salmonella</i> strains belonging to eight dominant serovars, and distinguished Infantis from the other seven serovars with an accuracy of 100%. The diagnostic primer set also did not show false positive amplification with 32 strains from eight non-<i>Salmonella</i> bacterial species. This cost-effective and rapid method can be considered an alternative to the classic serotyping using antisera.
|
|---|
