Amplified fragment length polymorphism of Streptococcus suis strains correlates with their profile of virulence-associated genes and clinical background

Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) typing was applied to 116 Streptococcus suis isolates with different clinical backgrounds (invasive/pneumonia/carrier/human) and with known profiles of virulence-associated genes (cps1, -2, -7 and -9, as well as mrp, epf and sly). A dendrogram was generated that allowed identification of two clusters (A and C) with different subclusters (A1, A2, C1 and C2) and two heterogeneous groups of strains (B and D). For comparison, three strains from each AFLP subcluster and group were subjected to multilocus sequence typing (MLST) analysis. The closest relationship and lowest diversity were found for patterns clustering within AFLP subcluster A1, which corresponded with sequence type (ST) complex 1. Strains within subcluster A1 were mainly invasive cps1 and mrp+ epf+ (or epf*) sly+ cps2+ strains of porcine or human origin. A new finding of this study was the clustering of invasive mrp* cps9 isolates within subcluster A2. MLST analysis suggested that A2 correlates with a single ST complex (ST87). In contrast to A1 and A2, subclusters C1 and C2 contained mainly pneumonia isolates of genotype cps7 or cps2 and epf- sly-. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that AFLP allows identification of clusters of S. suis strains with clinical relevance.