Genotypic characterization of seven strains of Mycoplasma fermentans isolated from synovial fluids of patients with arthritis

We performed a genotypic characterization of seven strains of Mycoplasma fermentans which have been isolated from the synovial fluid of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (n = 2), spondyloarthropathy (n = 1), and unclassified arthritis (n = 4). We compared them to three reference strains (strains PG18 and K7 and incognitus strain) and to a clinical isolate from the urethra of a patient with nongonococcal urethritis. The characterization methods included electrophoresis of native DNA arbitrarily primed PCR and restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis following conventional and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. Southern blot analysis with a probe internal to an insertion sequence was performed with the restriction products produced by the last two techniques. No extrachromosomal DNA sequences were detected. The M. fermentans strains identified by these methods did not present a unique profile, but they could be separated into two main categories: four articular isolates were genetically related to PG18 and the three other isolates, the urethral isolate, and the incognitus strain were related to K7. We also looked for the presence of the bacteriophage MAV1 (associated with the arthritogenic property of Mycoplasma arthritidis in rodents) in the M. fermentans strains. MAV1 DNA was not detected in either the clinical isolates or the reference strains of M. fermentans.