Molecular Serotyping of Bacillus turingiensis

A method for molecular serotyping of Bacillus turingiensis strains has been developed. It is based on comparison of nucleotide sequences of conserved regions of the flaA gene in five B. turingiensis serovars: sotto, kurstaki, israilensis, berliner, and morrisoni. For amplification of the target DNA fragment, a set of primers universal for all studied serovars of B. turingiensis was designed. To assign a strain to a particular serovar, a new algorithm based on the degree of homology of the conserved flaA region was developed. Validation of the method was carried out on 11 strains of B. turingiensis from the collection of the National Bioresource Center All-Russia National Collection of Industrial Microorganisms (VKPM). The results obtained by molecular serotyping fully coincided with the data of serological methods.